


Into Darkness

by poetroe



Series: Into Darkness [1]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018), She-Ra: Princess Of Power (1985)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Ambiguous uses of the word 'partner', Angst, Detective Catra, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gangs, Gun Violence, Guns, References to Drugs, Vigilante Adora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 03:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17779790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetroe/pseuds/poetroe
Summary: A vigilante with a thirst for justice, dressed in a black hoodie and armed with a longsword, shows up in Fright City. Detective Catra is on the trail, but ends up finding out way more than she bargained for. Can Catra protect her city when the only person she can trust is the one she’s been trying to catch?A catradora vigilante au





	Into Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> it took me a while but it's finally done !!! i just wanna say happy valentines day to you all, this fic goes out to everyone on twitter who supported me while i was writing this fic, i love y'all. remember to treat urself today and enjoy reading!

The rain is pouring down like no tomorrow. Catra glances at the clock on the dashboard of the car; it’s not even four in the afternoon, but the ominous clouds and the storm that’s currently ravaging Fright City make it seem like it’s the middle of the night. The bright neon lights from the bustling heart of the city are reflected onto the wet asphalt they’re driving over, slowly trailing behind an endless stream of cars.

“We’re not getting anywhere like this,” Catra murmurs. Lonnie should’ve known better than to take this route through town; no way she’s going to ride shotgun ever again after this. With a huff, she rolls down her window, dutifully ignoring the way her arm gets soaked in the few seconds it takes her to get the siren up on the roof of the car. She turns it on, grinning slightly at how a couple of goody two shoes civilians hurry to make way for them. “Well, what are you waiting for?” Catra asks when she turns to her partner Lonnie, who takes her sweet time accelerating. “Floor it, or we’re never going to be there on time.”

“Take it easy, partner,” Lonnie says, eyes fixed on the road in front of them, smoothly swerving around the evading cars. “We’ll make it.” Catra just rolls her eyes and turns her attention back to the lights, outside. The siren, like the rain, sounds far away through the closed window. Eventually, Lonnie turns off the main road and into a quieter neighborhood, and Catra brings the siren inside the car again. The streets get narrower the further they proceed into this part of town; the road looks not properly maintained, and the houses rundown. Finally, they arrive at the phonebooth the call was made from. Lonnie parks the car on the side of the street and the both of them step out of it.

Her jacket doesn’t do much to keep out the rain and Catra shudders as she feels it seep through to her shoulders, cooling her arms and dripping down to her elbows. Grimacing, she marches into a dark alley, keeping close to the wall. With a sure hand, she grips the butt of her trusted SIG Sauer and lifts it out of its holster, holding it tightly in two hands. The streaming rain makes it hard to see anything beyond two yards in the distance; especially with the total absence of streetlights. Catra grinds her teeth and lifts her arms, holding up her gun by way of precaution as she moves further into the darkness with big, resolute strides.

The anonymous call tipped them off about a drug transaction here. The caller had confirmed he hadn’t been spotted, so the dealer should still be here. The rain does have the penchant to chase criminals off the streets, Catra thinks as her eyes slide along the crates and trash that litter the ground. Still; the Fright City Police Department’s crackdown on drug related crime means that dealers can’t afford to take shelter at the first sign of bad weather, especially in a city so plagued by storms.

Her dark curls are pulled back into a ponytail, but the couple of strands that have managed to escape being pulled back are now sticking to her forehead. Annoyed, Catra brings one hand to her face to wipe them away. She stalks through a few puddles and eventually reaches the end of the alley. Seeing that it’s empty, Catra holsters her handgun and crouches down. On the ground, dirty and wet, lie an empty zip lock bag, a couple of drenched rolling papers, torn off tips and some cigarettes, smoked all the way to the filter. With a grimace, Catra fishes a latex glove out of the pocket of her jacket, puts it on and collects the traces; her eyes pausing briefly when she sees the black stone depicted on the little plastic bag.

“This is all that’s left,” she grumbles as she thrusts the evidence bag in Lonnie’s hands and walks past her to the car, bumping their shoulders together aggressively. “Next time, I drive.”

 

Both the persistent rain and Catra’s already pretty dreary day continue on well into the night. When she gets off work, Catra chooses the long way home out of spite. She might drop by a bar this way, or she might just walk home and crawl into her bed, only to shut her eyes tightly and hope she falls asleep soon. And then when she wakes up again she’ll be off to her job, working cases with the most annoying partner she had ever been assigned. Well, with one exception.

Catra flinches as she steps in one particularly deep puddle and feels the rainwater soak the sock in her sneaker. “Great,” she mumbles. The wind, that picks up every once and again, is freezing when paired with her wet clothes and Catra shivers. Her eyes slide past other pedestrians as she moves with the packed Friday night crowd, down to the place where she’s considered a regular, in the cheaper part of town.

She’s almost there when her eyes sweep the crowd once again. It’s a restless habit, probably picked up during her training for the force, and now it makes Catra pause so severely that someone actually bumps into her. A hasty apology leaves her mouth, but Catra is more fixated on the figure that just stepped out of one of the shops on the other side of the street. Her back is turned to Catra and the rain is still beating down, blurring her vision, but Catra feels like she can’t be more sure. The ponytail, the glasses, the way she stands there; comfortable in spite of the ruthless weather. It has to be Adora.

Adora, her ex-partner, who had always been annoyingly untroubled by the rains of Fright City, who had been even more of a pain in her ass than Lonnie is. Before she knows what she’s doing, Catra is already making her way over. She walks briskly, but in her fixation Catra doesn’t see the car that’s heading straight for her, just as she’s about to cross the street. With a yelp she can jump backwards just before it would’ve driven right over her toes. When she looks up again, chest still heaving from the shock, the figure is gone; most likely swallowed whole by the evening crowd.

Resigned, Catra turns back to the sidewalk and keeps on walking. The knowledge that Adora might be out here as well tonight keeps her legs moving past her regular watering hole, for some reason, and further into town. She’ll just walk home, Catra thinks. Home and then a shower, washing off the grime and memories before she can finally go to sleep and let this day come to an end.

The walk home takes her past a park. There aren’t any streetlights there, bathing the pathways through the trees in darkness, and Catra makes a mental note to keep walking on this side of the park. That is, until a loud shriek pierces the damp night air. Catra stops and is fully alert in an instant. Her hand hovers above her holster as she decides to accept the risk that limited visibility brings and enters the park.

Stumbling as she hurries along an uneven gravel path, Catra approaches two figures. One of them towers over the other, who is sitting on his knees and yelps again in fear. It’s a man, Catra notices, and he sounds like he’s crying. Careful not to make any sound, she crouches behind some bushes and draws her pistol. Something glimmers in the shadows. As Catra narrows her eyes, she can make out the shape. It’s long, thin, and seems to be made with some kind of metal. It could be an aluminum baseball bat, Catra thinks as she observes how the tall person, shrouded entirely in shadows, is holding it up slightly, like a weapon. It could also be a piece of steel pipe, a weapon of convenience.

The man on the ground is sputtering apparent nonsense words, a few of which Catra is able to pick up on despite of her position a few yards away. “… what do you … bitch with a sword … will get out eventually …” She keeps watching as the tall figure decides they’ve had enough and knocks the man unconscious with the blunt end of the metal object. In one movement, Catra is up on her feet and moving towards the figure with her gun raised.

“FCPD, turn around,” she says, loud and resolute. “Drop your weapon and show me your hands.” Now that she’s closer, Catra can see this person is wearing a black hoodie over grey jeans. The object in their hand looks a suspicious amount like an actual sword, which has Catra widening her eyes and keeping her distance, simultaneously. “I mean it,” Catra says when the person still doesn’t move; their back turned to Catra. “Move slowly. Show me your hands or I might be forced to shoot you.” The person only chuckles.

“Seriously?” she says. With a flourish, she turns around and puts down the hood, and Catra is suddenly eye to eye with a girl who can’t be much older than she is. Her blue eyes seem to sparkle as she looks at Catra, her sandy blonde hair falling down over her shoulders in waves. “And after I went through all the trouble to incapacitate this drug dealer, too.” Catra’s eyes shoot from the girl’s long, wavy hair to the unconscious heap of a man in the grass, to the weapon in her hand that Catra only now realizes is actually a _sword_. And not the kind you can get a toy store, either.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Catra answers calmly, still pointing the gun at the girl. “Catching criminals is our job. We’re trained to do it so the rest of you can sleep safer at night.” The girl just huffs, her hand clenching around the hilt of the sword. Catra’s eye falls on it again and she wonders if that is real gold, gleaming underneath those rigid fingers.

“Well, maybe if you had actually _done_ your job, I wouldn’t have had to do it for you,” the girl counters with a glare. “This man has been hanging around here for weeks. Are you aware that this is a place where children come? Can you imagine what could’ve happened if he, I don’t know, dropped some pills on the ground? Or worse, what if he had started selling—”

“That’s enough,” Catra growls through a clenched jaw. “Look, we try our best. Sometimes a crook still slips through the cracks.” She glances at the man on the ground, then back at the girl. “But that doesn’t mean you get to play judge and execute your own justice. Are you aware this makes you a criminal, too?” The girl narrows her eyes at her and looks away.

“I don’t care. Call me what you want, but I’m not going to stand idly by while drugs come into my neighborhood and all the Fright City police can seem to do about it is look the other way,” she answers. The dealer on the grass starts moving, stretching his arms and moaning softly. “I suggest you arrest him, now. Goodbye.” With those words, before Catra can tell her to freeze, the girl steps back into the shadows and disappears.

With a sigh, Catra holsters her gun and grabs her pair of handcuffs. The man on the ground is laying on his stomach, making it a little easier for Catra to pull his arms back and slap them on his wrists just as he’s regaining consciousness. She has half a mind to go after the girl. The park can’t be that big, after all. But she has a crime to call in, a squad car to alert in order for them to come pick this lowlife up and, when she looks at the product in the pockets of his jacket, another report to add to the ever-growing file of the Black Garnet Gang. The black stone, depicted on the small zip lock baggies filled with weed, pills and what looks like speed glares at her as she’s waiting for the squad car and it makes Catra’s stomach twirl with unease, and the feeling that the city might be on the cusp of something truly bad. It’s so distracting that she only realizes back home, under the warm spray of the shower, that the park she caught the vigilante and the dealer in is situated in Adora’s old neighborhood.

***

After that first time, Catra can’t seem to get away from the vigilante girl with the sword; for some reason, they keep running into each other. She’ll enter a nail salon with Lonnie, ready to launch an investigation into possible human trafficking and money laundering there, only to find the hooded vigilante in a back room, already beating up the person apparently responsible. She’ll enter a drug lab in an abandoned warehouse with Lonnie, Kevlar vests on and guns out, the safety off; only to find it already destroyed as if a tornado had come through. Sure, it’s easy enough to arrest the people involved when they’re already sitting with their wrists tied to a rusty metal railing with zip ties, as if delivered to them on a silver platter, but it’s still _wrong_. Especially since Catra has had to work for everything else in her life.

“I don’t know why it bothers you so much, Cat,” Lonnie says once they’re outside again. The last of the workers from the drug lab, all people with greasy hair, tired eyes and white facemasks, are being guided to the back of an FCPD bus. Catra watches them go as she leans against her black Chevy Impala. “We busted a Horde Syndicate drugs lab. And we didn’t even have to chase after these perps.”

“Well, some of us actually _enjoy_ that part of the job, Lonnie,” Catra sneers. The folks from forensics, dressed from head to toe in their containment suits, enter the warehouse. “Besides, this could hurt our case.” She turns around, about to enter the car, but Lonnie is looking at her from the other side of the roof like she just declared that cows can fly. Catra rolls her eyes. “Seriously? Don’t you know it could hurt the chances of the prosecution when we aren’t actually there to see them _make the drugs_?” Catra runs a hand over her hair, once again slicked back into a ponytail. “We have no eye witnesses. Or, the one we do have makes a habit of disappearing right from under our noses. And all the evidence they’re going to find inside is probably going to be circumstantial.” Lonnie just shrugs as she opens the door to the passenger side of the car.

“We got them off the street, that’s all that counts, right?” she says as she sits down, and shuts the car door. Catra lifts her eyes to the heavens—it’s packed with clouds in varying shades of grey, like always—and groans loudly before hanging her head down, and doing the same.

Another nice surprise is waiting for them when they get back to the precinct. Catra notices the changed atmosphere almost instantly as she and Lonnie exit the elevator. There’s seems to be much less talking, for one. They round the corner and enter the bullpen, and immediately Catra sees why.

Captain Weaver is standing in front of her office, arms crossed firmly behind her back. Her dark eyes fall on Catra, who instantly freezes up. Lonnie pushes against her shoulder as she walks past her to stand with the other detectives. That shakes Catra up a little. Eyeing captain Weaver suspiciously, she goes to stand next to Rogelio; a tall, dark-skinned beat cop and one of her oldest friends on the force. Probably the only one left, too, Catra thinks as she bumps his shoulder playfully.

“What’s going on?” she asks silently. “Someone get in trouble?” Rogelio just shrugs, so Catra turns her attention back to the captain.

“Everyone; please, if I could have your attention,” captain Weaver starts, her dark, sternly set eyes gliding over the crowd of assembled cops and detectives. “I’m sure most of you have never deemed it any more than the ramblings of desperate criminals, playing on your open-minded natures in a vain attempt to avoid being condemned for whatever crime committed, all by spinning some tall tale about a hooded vigilante with a sword. Still, over the past weeks it has become apparent that there might be some truth to these accounts.” Catra has to suppress the urge to roll her eyes. Because, well, _duh_. “I’m sure you’ll all agree that this kind of behavior is unacceptable,” the captain continues. “Only the FCPD has the jurisdiction to enforce the law. Any individual attempting the same is not just a danger for the city, it is a danger for the force.” The captain pauses, eyes sliding over the group again as if to establish they’re all still listening to her. “That’s why I want you to do what is necessary to bring this hoodlum in. And by that I do mean _all things necessary_. From now on any and all information regarding this individual will be collected in a separate case. Dismissed.” Immediately, the crowd disperses. Catra walks with Rogelio and the rookie they recently assigned him, a gangly kid who looks like he can’t be a day over twenty, to the break room.

“So,” she says as they’re all sitting, Rogelio digging into his blueberry yoghurt and Kyle, the rookie, looking around uncomfortably. “What do you guys think about this whole vigilante thing? It almost sounded like Weaver’s got a personal crusade.” Rogelio grins around his spoon.

“You know how she gets when people don’t act the way they’re supposed to,” he answers. Catra scoffs angrily.

“Yeah. Well, as long as she doesn’t blame _me_ for it again.” Rogelio pats her shoulder in support, but the rookie just looks at the two of them, confused.

“Why,” he asks, “what happened?” Rogelio is already telling Kyle to back off under his breath, but Catra just shakes her head and leans backward in her chair, crossing her arms.

“It’s okay,” she tells Rogelio. Then she turns to Kyle. “My previous partner started doing some work off the books. I don’t know what she was looking into, exactly, but it was bad enough that she quit the force. Weaver blames me for it, claiming it’s the fault of my ‘poor people skills’ that we lost a first-rate detective,” Catra says, throwing up air quotes haphazardly. The captain might actually have a point with the number of partners she burns through in a year, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t unfairly blamed for Adora leaving. That had all been her own decision, so her own damn fault.

“You do go through partners kind of fast, Cat,” Rogelio murmurs, taking another bite of his yoghurt. “But yeah, you and Adora were a good team. Remember, you actually liked her.” Catra scoffs again and takes a long sip of her inky black coffee.

“Did not,” she mutters into the mug.

 

Now that the entire department is aware of the vigilante and their orders towards the hooded miscreant, Catra decides to do some research. On the down low, if only to spite Weaver; but also because what the vigilante told her in that dark city park has struck a nerve. She had been right, in a way. The FCPD hadn’t been there to catch the dealer, but _she_ had.

Catra is all for justice. It’s always been so ingrained in her personality that she couldn’t even cheat on tests back when she was in school, and it’s the reason she feels like she should protect the vigilante, now. Aren’t they on the same side, after all? Besides, it’s not like anyone else knows what she knows, Catra finds out when she asks around the precinct. At this point, the general consensus is that they’re dealing with a man wearing a black hoodie and wielding a baseball bat, who’s main focus lies on people with ties to either the Black Garnet Gang or the Horde Crime Syndicate.

Apart from the first part, which Catra knows to be completely inaccurate, the theory is interesting. Catra remembers the black garnet on the zip lock baggies, and the Horde lab she busted with Lonnie the other day. Combine that with the other instances the vigilante was spotted, and the pattern is definitely there. Sitting down behind her desk, Catra gets out an empty notebook and starts writing down the dates of the encounters, the gang that was targeted, and the location of the incident.

This vigilante girl knows her stuff, Catra realizes when she looks at the data. Some variety would’ve been expected if this is just about keeping a certain neighborhood safe; like stopping a robbery, or a fight. This list shows that the vigilante is not only active citywide, she also exclusively targets Fright City’s two main criminal organizations. Catra grins at this realization. Suddenly, predicting the unpredictable girl’s next move seems a lot easier.

***

Catra sinks her teeth into a donut. She’s a walking stereotype of a cop at this point; crazy about cars and guns, surviving off a diet consisting of coffee and sugary goods. Fleetingly, she thinks about how Adora would’ve told her she’s bound to get chubby, wolfing down donuts like this. Lonnie just fiddles with the scanner while she takes another bite of her own.

They’re sitting in Catra’s Chevy, staking out one of the docks in the harbor that intel says is the place where the Black Garnet Gang get their drugs into the city. That intel came from an arrested gang member, but the eerie quiet that surrounds the docks has Catra thinking that, in the case of it actually being true, the gang must be pretty versatile in moving their operations; or at the least, keeping them unseen. It feels more like the crook just lied to them, though. Catra shifts in her seat uncomfortably.

After maybe half an hour, the radio suddenly crackles loudly. “This is dispatch, calling to all available units, code eight at Blue Ridge and Pacific. Multiple parties involved in a disturbance, shots fired.” Grateful for the distraction, Catra all but jumps on the transmitter and presses the switch.

“Copy that. We’re en route, over,” she says, before revving the engine of the car loudly and taking off. “Lonnie, get out the Kevlar,” Catra tells her partner as she drives back into town. Lonnie is quick in putting the siren on the roof and turning it on, before turning around and leaning over to grab the two bulletproof vests from the backseat. She puts hers on and keeps the other one ready on her lap.

On their way there, the radio keeps updating them on the situation. There is one officer on site and engaged, and through his sporadic messages it quickly becomes clear that this a case of gang violence. Reports of individuals with bat tattoos in their necks and the semi-automatics they carry have Catra swallow uneasily, the tiny bit of fear that’s swirling in the pit of her abdomen slowly growing more heavy. She’s been a detective for three years now, and a cop for even longer. This will probably not be the most dangerous situation she’ll ever be in. Still, she’s afraid.

Adora would tell her that it’s healthy. Catra just finds it annoying how her heart picks up the pace and her leg trembles as she floors it, pedal to the metal while she directs the car through traffic fluidly.

The booming sound of weapons being fired greets them as Catra parks the car two blocks away from the disturbance. With practiced ease she puts on the bulletproof vest and then she and Lonnie are on their way, carefully walking closer to the ground zero of the conflict. As they’re about to enter it from a side street, Blue Ridge Road lies seemingly abandoned in the twilight, but Catra knows better. Her eyes scan the surroundings carefully and she can already see two men and a woman hiding out behind a grey Honda, some twenty yards away to the right. With sure fingers, she clicks the safety of her handgun off.

Suddenly, there are shots coming from the left, directed at the group Catra just spotted. Hissing curses under her breath, Catra tightens her grip on her trusted SIG and ducks down, pressing her shoulder against the wall of a building. She quickly looks around the corner to the left and sees two people moving out of their cover behind an old beige Buick, shooting a couple rounds at their opponents before ducking back down. A little to the side of the car lies a third man unnervingly still. The officer who called it in is nowhere to be seen and Catra knows she and Lonnie are the first ones to arrive on the scene, but if this continues on any longer, the chance of increasing the number of casualties grows. So, Catra decides to take a risk.

“FCPD!” she yells, at the top of her lungs. “We have you surrounded! Drop your weapons and surrender peacefully!”

“What the fuck, Catra,” Lonnie hisses from behind her, obviously pissed. “We’re all alone out here, remember?!” Catra doesn’t respond and just keeps her gaze forward, looking for any sign of the shooters accepting her bluff, or calling her out on it. No response comes, both parties seemingly waiting and considering their next move. Catra raises her arm, pointing her gun skyward and fires once.

“That was your warning!” she shouts. “It’s the only one you’re going to get!” Gritting her teeth, Catra takes a step forward, away from the cover of the building and onto the road, out in the open. Immediately, a bullet whizzes past her, hitting the brick behind her and ricocheting off of the wall. In a flash, Catra is back in her previous position. “Fuck,” she mutters with a frown.

With all the experience she has in the field, Catra should have known better than to get in between two feuding parties and attempt to dissolve the situation from there. Surrendering to the police is not just a sign of weakness here, it makes you an easy target for your opponent. She and Lonnie are basically waiting ducks now, resigned to wait until other officers show up and they can use their numbers as an advantage. Catra lifts her eyes to the quickly darkening clouds that are rolling over Fright City, and curses again.

Then, after what seems like an eternity, an anguished shout comes from the individuals hiding behind the Buick. A second passes and another pained scream fills the air, alongside rapid gunfire. The strange thing is that it apparently all happens on the one side of the street. Almost as if there’s a third party, Catra thinks. Anticipation starts to make her skin crawl and all she wants to do is look around the corner again, but she forces herself to stay put and simply observe from her cover. The other group on the right side starts shooting again, returning fire, but Catra doubts if any of those previous shots had been aimed at them at all.

She gets the answer to that question when a few seconds later, a figure clad in all black runs past the side street Catra and Lonnie are holed up in and somersaults into cover behind a black Dodge. It’s the vigilante, Catra realizes with a jolt as her eyes fall on the sword that clings to her back. It looks even bigger now that she can actually see it in the yellow street lights, but when the girl gets it off her back, she holds it up like it weighs nothing.

“Lonnie,” Catra whispers to her partner, while keeping her eyes on the vigilante. “I’m going in. Give me cover, will you?”

“Catra—” Lonnie starts, sounding exasperated.

She’s going to complain, Catra knows, so without waiting any longer she hisses, “wait here for backup,” and takes off. She ducks her head down and sprints to the Dodge, bullets flying past her as she runs. Catra doesn’t have time to look back and see if those guys behind the Buick are still a threat, but for some reason she trusts the vigilante to have taken care of it.

“Hey,” Catra says as she crouches down next to her, having made it to cover unharmed. “Fancy meeting you here.” The girl turns around in shock, already raising her sword, but the frantic look in her eyes disappears when she recognizes Catra.

“Detective,” she says with a grin, before turning back and glancing through the windows of the car. “It is surprising to see you here on time, for a change.” Catra rolls her eyes and shifts a little in her crouched position. The vigilante looks the same as during those previous encounters, wearing black jeans and a black hoodie with long strands of blonde hair falling out of the hood and over her chest. And wielding the sword, of course.

“One of ours called it in,” Catra continues, speaking silently. “Haven’t spotted him yet, though, and it’s been quiet for a while. At this point I’m fearing the worst.” The vigilante turns back to her, abandoning her stakeout of the other gang members for a second, and the gloomy look on her face gives Catra the sinking feeling that she’s right.

“I saw him,” the girl says, casting her eyes downwards. “He was lying a couple of yards that way. I checked, but… he wasn’t breathing.” Catra grits her teeth at the confirmation.

“Fucking bastards.” The vigilante looks at her for another moment before turning back. “So, what do we do now?” Catra continues. “You do have a plan, right?” To her horror, the girl just shrugs and holds her sword a little tighter. “Oh, for fucks sake,” Catra mutters. “Okay, this is how it’s going down. You have to get close somehow, then you can fight and incapacitate them like you did with those guys behind the Buick, right?” The vigilante nods silently. “Good. I’ll cover you and approach them from the opposite side once you’re close.” The girl stays still and for a moment Catra wonders if she’s scared, or if she’s going to have to give this girl a pep talk. Then the vigilante meets Catra’s eyes again and speaks.

“Do you trust me?” she says. Catra hesitates; searching in those bright, grey blue eyes for a reason not to. She can’t say that she finds it.

“I trust that you have the city’s best interests at heart,” she answers eventually. “And I don’t think you turning on the police is a part of that, so. Yes, I suppose.” The girl grins.

“You’re right,” she answers, turning her attention back to the Honda the other gang members are hiding behind. “I won’t turn on you. Though I’m not making any promises for your colleagues.” Before Catra can ask what that even means, the vigilante is up and running towards the grey car. No choice but to follow now that their plan has been set in motion, Catra draws her SIG and starts shooting at anything that moves behind the Honda. She can see the girl running from the corner of her eye, hunched over and avoiding bullets as she sprints past parked cars. Catra’s returning fire is messing with the culprits’ aim sufficiently enough because in what feels like no time at all, the vigilante is running up to the car. Catra keeps her eyes on the scene as she starts running, too. In a fluid movement, the hooded girl jumps onto the hood of the car, then on the roof in the same movement, only touching down on it with one foot before she twirls through the air and swings her sword. Her aim is impeccable; she hits the guns of two of the perps without them actually losing a hand or a finger, but a third one seated a yard or two back has the jump on her. She’s still sprinting and she’s close, but Catra can’t prevent the woman from pulling the trigger and shooting the vigilante, point blank.

The shot echoes between the brick buildings and Catra feels her heart drop into her stomach as she sees the girl groan and hunch over slightly. Nevertheless, she’s reached the Honda, now.

“Drop the gun,” Catra growls as she approaches the woman. “ _Now_. I’m not going to ask twice.” It’s a small mercy that the woman complies, dropping her gun at Catra’s feet. “Good,” Catra says, kicking the gun hard and out either of their reach as her eyes dart between the woman and the two men. Her gaze falls on their matching necklaces, all delicate silver chains with a black gemstone hanging from it, the telltale sign of Black Garnet Gang membership. “All of you, on the ground and put your hands on your head. Do _not_ let me see you move. You won’t like what happens next.” Staring up the barrel of her gun, they all do as she says. Only then does Catra have time to glance at the vigilante, who is still cradling her abdomen. There doesn’t seem to be any blood, but then again that could be a trick of the light. Blood isn’t that easy to spot when it stains an already inky black fabric. “Hey, vigilante,” Catra murmurs, turning her focus back on the people on the ground. “You okay?” To her surprise, the vigilante jumps off the roof of the car without any difficulty.

“Yeah,” she answers as she fishes a handful of black zip ties from the hoodie’s front pocket. “I’m wearing a bulletproof shirt under this, so,” the girl continues, shooting Catra a sheepish smile as she starts binding the three gang members’ wrists together behind their back. “I mean, I kind of have to. I did bring a sword to a gunfight, after all.” Catra huffs out a laugh.

“You’re crazy,” she says. The girl just turns towards her and smiles.

“Like I said the first time, call me what you want,” she comments as she walks past Catra and picks up her sword, running a hand over the blade reverently. Then she turns back around, grinning. “But if you want to call me anything other than ‘vigilante’, you can call me She-Ra.” Catra raises an eyebrow.

“ _She-Ra_?” she repeats, if only to confirm she heard right. She-Ra just shrugs and keeps on smiling awkwardly.

“What? I just— Someone I know was just really into that cartoon when she was a kid,” she mutters, looking away. Catra grins and holsters her gun, finally relaxing her posture and burying her fists in the pockets of her leather jacket.

“Yeah, me too,” she answers. There is a brief lull in their conversation where they just stand there, both simply regarding the other, She-Ra still holding her sword and casually leaning against the with bullet holes riddled Honda, and Catra shifting her weight from one foot to the other aimlessly. Then she spots Lonnie, who in the absence of any more gunfire seems to have decided to get out of hiding to find her. Catra frowns. “You have to get out of here,” she tells She-Ra. “We have orders to bring you in. Serious orders, like, anything short of actually shooting to kill.” She-Ra’s eyes widen and she brings a hand to her hood, pulling it over her face a little more.

“Why are you telling me that?” she asks, but it’s not like Catra actually knows, herself. She averts her gaze and shrugs.

“I told you I trusted you, didn’t I?” In hindsight, Catra wishes that was it. She wishes She-Ra would just nod and listen to her and get out; instead, she puts down the sword, propping it up against the car, before walking up to Catra and pulling her into a hug. Catra freezes up as soon as two strong arms curl around her shoulders, and her face is pressed against the soft fabric of She-Ra’s black hoodie.

In hindsight, Catra would’ve just pushed her away. But she doesn’t, and all of a sudden Lonnie is shouting something and shooting at them. Badly startled, they break apart, and before Catra knows it She-Ra is gone; sprinting away and turning a corner, all while Lonnie keeps firing round after round.

“What the hell?!” Catra hisses as soon as Lonnie is standing next to her. “What the fuck, Lonnie, you could’ve hit me!” Lonnie just rolls her eyes and sighs.

“Look, our orders were clear, right? I was just aiming at his legs,” she says. Catra clenches her jaw. She feels like she could just explode with anger and frustration right about now.

“And what if you hit _my_ leg, huh?” Catra snarls. “You could’ve crippled me, but no, because _captain Weaver said_ —”

“At least I wasn’t the one _hugging a vigilante_ ,” Lonnie retaliates, wearing a smirk that’s way too wide and too smug to mean anything good for Catra. Especially when she feels a blush coming on.

“I wasn’t hugging the vigilante,” Catra counters, turning around and roughly pulling up one of the three gang members off the street. “She had me in a headlock, that’s all.”

“Wait— ‘she’?” Lonnie says eagerly and Catra freezes, realizing her mistake. At least it seems to distract Lonnie from the whole hugging thing.

“Uh, yeah,” Catra says as she gets out her walkie talkie and calls for a cruiser to pick up their suspects, and the ones on the other side. “Or I think it was. I couldn’t see their face very clearly.” She can only hope it sounds believable enough, but as an extra measure Catra pushes the two guys in her direction. “Here, hold these for me, will you?” Lonnie mutters something under her breath but Catra is already stretched entirely too thin with the many exhausting things making up this afternoon to care: an officer shot dead, two feuding gangs holding their shoot-out on a street out in the open, and a vigilante that’s entirely too morally ambiguous. Then, as she helps up the woman, Catra notices another thing to add to that list. Still resting against the grey Honda, stands She-Ra’s sword.

 

How she manages to get it away from the crime scene undetected, Catra isn’t sure. Maybe it’s Lonnie, who always seems to lack that observant nature that makes Catra such a good detective. Or if she does possess the ability, it sure doesn’t seem like she uses it much, with the way she just shrugged and replied, “sure thing, boss,” when Catra asked her to bring the five rounded up gang members to the station.

Now the sword sitting on her lumpy couch, the bright jade stone in the golden guard shining even in the perpetual twilight of Catra’s crappy, tiny apartment. Catra glances at it again from her kitchen, hands wrapped around a mug of steaming, black coffee. She briefly thinks about She-Ra. Of course Catra hadn’t been able to resist swinging the sword once or twice, careful not to hit any walls or furniture, if only to place herself in the vigilante’s shoes for once. Like she had already thought, the thing is actually pretty heavy, meaning She-Ra must have impressive upper body strength to be able to wield it as smoothly as she does.

Catra is still thinking about it, the way the girl moved through a rain of bullets without hesitation. And the sword, the way it cut through the air like an extension of her arm. For what is probably the millionth time these past weeks, Catra wonders who it is, exactly, underneath the black hoodie.

The doorbell rings, slightly startling Catra. She puts down her coffee and moves to open the door. Probably another delivery for her neighbors across the hall, she thinks as she opens the door, ready to shoot the UPS guy a bored but polite smile while signing for the package. But Catra is met with an even more unwelcome sight than a mail man. Standing there, wearing a serious expression behind thick rimmed glasses, is Adora. Catra represses the urge to groan and roll her eyes.

“Uh, hey, Adora,” she says, leaning a shoulder against the door post and crossing her arms. “What are you doing here?”

“Can I come in?” her ex-partner asks quietly. Catra shrugs in lieu of an answer, but steps aside to let her in, anyway.

“Why are you here?” Catra asks again when they’re both standing in her tiny living room. The sword is taking up all the space on her couch, so she grabs it, walks over to the kitchen and stuffs it in the cupboard beneath the sink.

“What was that?” Adora just asks as she sits down on the couch.

“Nothing,” Catra responds, observing her from the kitchen. Adora raises an eyebrow questioningly. “It’s a long story. So, did you want something, or…?” Adora leans back against the ragged couch cushions and crosses her ankles.

“I heard about what happened today,” she says, and Catra groans. With a sigh, she grabs her coffee and sits down on one of the chairs of her mismatched dining room set.

“God, I thought the days of you scolding me for my reckless behavior would be behind us when you quit the force,” she mutters. Adora just keeps sizing her up, undeterred.

“You need to be careful, Catra,” she says, standing up from the couch and joining Catra at the table. “And I don’t just mean when dealing with gang violence. Please tell me you’ll be careful with who you trust within the force, as well.” Catra glances at blue eyes skeptically.

“What do you mean? Look, Adora, I know Weaver is a piece of work, but—”

“I don’t mean captain Weaver,” Adora cuts in. “At least, I don’t think it’s her. But you have to know—there is a mole in the department. Someone with ties to the Black Garnet Gang.” Catra scoffs, laughing slightly.

“Sorry, but I think you need to cut back on the conspiracy theories,” she says. “Do you hear what you’re saying?” Adora just frowns and leans in closer.

“Catra,” she continues, resolutely. “I’m _not_ kidding. The newspaper I work for, the Herald, we have solid proof that there has been contact between the gang and someone in the FCPD.” Catra sighs, running a hand through her thick curls, and looks at Adora again. She does look the part of journalist now; tired, her hair done up in a messy bun and sporting a crinkled blouse. And all of a sudden, it just clicks inside Catra’s mind.

“Hold up,” she says, putting down her mug. “Is this what you were working on that was so bad it made you quit as a detective?” Adora at least has the decency to look away guiltily.

“I couldn’t stay,” she answers. “I had to work this case from the outside. There is something wrong within the FCPD, Catra, and it has been that way for a while. Don’t you think it’s strange, that with the amount of money the city funnels into the department, gang violence is still on the rise? And your incident today—I contacted Entrapta at the forensics lab. She told me that the officer who died was shot by a FCPD issued handgun.” Catra can’t quite believe what she’s hearing.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” she protests weakly. “Someone could have, I don’t know, taken it from him, and...” Catra trails off as she stares at her murky black coffee; it doesn’t exactly sound convincing.

“Look,” Adora says, grabbing Catra’s hand where it’s resting on the dark wood of the table. “I’m sorry I left. But I needed to get out and investigate, without being tied to the department. I need to show people what’s wrong and how deep it goes, or things will never change.” Her hand, warm on Catra’s, feels nice and familiar; like something she lost somewhere along the way. Still Catra pulls away.

“I really hope you’re just seeing things,” she murmurs, crossing her arms over her chest. Adora smiles sympathetically.

“Me too. But for now, just—stay safe, okay?” With that, Adora stands up. Catra stays put and watches as Adora gives her a little wave and another hesitant smile before letting herself out. The front door clicks shut behind her and then Catra is all alone again; but this time with a lot more on her mind.

She should do something. Adora is working this and, going by the way she seems focused on stopping the Black Garnet and Horde gangs, She-Ra is, too. That’s two people she can trust, Catra thinks. Perhaps the only two, left. It’s still strange to think about a leak in the department. Theirs isn’t the biggest precinct in the city and Catra knows everyone by name; she mentally goes over their names and faces, trying to remember something, _anything_ relevant. Nothing comes up. Only the realization that she’s going to keep her eyes peeled, and her ear to the ground.

***

The next morning, Catra picks up the Bright Moon Herald on her commute to work. It’s a little out of character for her because she doesn’t really do papers, preferring to check the news on her phone when she rides the subway. Maybe it’s because of Adora’s visit yesterday. Or, she knows it is, because Catra’s eyes keep glancing over headlines, pictures and bylines until she finds the name she’d subconsciously been looking for. It’s a fluff piece on some kid raising money for a charity by walking all the dogs in the neighborhood, and despite the very serious case she’s working on this is just _so Adora_ that Catra just rolls her eyes and smirks as she turns the page. When she gets off at her stop, she leaves the paper behind on one of the hard plastic chairs.

Lonnie is already at her desk when Catra arrives at her own, across from it.

“Yo,” she greets her partner as she takes off her leather jacket and sits down. Lonnie glances up at her briefly before going back to reading the report in her hands.

“Hey,” she says, eyes scanning the paper. “Back already? I thought Weaver told you to take a few personal days after what went down the other day.” Catra shrugs and looks around the bullpen. Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary, like always.

“You know me. I’m not that good at doing what I’m told,” Catra answers. It’s true; on their very first day of working together, Adora told her to stay in the car. She didn’t, opting instead to follow her senior partner to the corner store to question a robbery victim. Nothing really happened, but the tone to their partnership had been set. Thinking about Adora has Catra’s thoughts going to the accusations made yesterday all too quickly, and thinking about the gangs has her thinking about the vigilante. “Any new developments in the vigilante case?” Catra asks, trying to sound less invested in the answer than she is. Lonnie shrugs.

“Well, we know she’s a girl, now. And the weapon is established by experts to be a longsword,” Lonnie answers, slapping the file she’s holding down on the desk before leaning back in her chair. “Other than that, nada.”

“Right,” Catra says, thinking about her own, personal notebook, that has detailed descriptions of encounters and other information such as estimated height, eye and hair color, the fact that the vigilante sounds like a Fright City local and that she goes by She-Ra. It’s altogether way more than the entire department has been able to come up with these past weeks. “Too bad.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lonnie says as she stands up. “We’ll keep an eye on Black Garnet and the Horde, and just get her the next time. You want coffee?”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks,” Catra answers. She watches Lonnie go to the breakroom, then looks around the room again. It’s early so the bullpen is still peacefully quiet. Deciding to take the risk, Catra grabs her notebook from the bottom drawer of her desk and starts writing a detailed report on the shootout from yesterday. Then, thinking about her conversation with Adora, she also flips through the pages until she reaches the one dedicated to She-Ra’s MO, and adds ‘possibly after FCPD mole’. Maybe it’s a bit of a long shot, Catra thinks as she puts down her pen. It’s possible She-Ra just really hates gang violence. Even so, the fact that she became active only a week or two after Adora left the force to do her own research is a bit strange. Maybe they’re working together? Maybe—

“Detective.” Catra jumps at the voice, that’s suddenly way too close to her ear. In a reflex, she shuts the notebook and swivels around in her chair, facing the captain.

“Captain Weaver,” Catra replies, trying her hardest not to start fidgeting under that withering glare.

“I assume you are working this vigilante case with everything you’ve got, detective,” captain Weaver says in that horribly stern and nasal voice of hers. Catra clenches her jaw and tries not to wince at the sound. “Especially since you let her get away.”

“Well, if Lonnie hadn’t start shooting at us so recklessly, I—”

“Shifting the blame to your partner?” Weaver interrupts with a frown, her mouth set in an ugly, downturned grimace. “I thought you would have improved on that, seeing what occurred with your previous partner, but apparently you still have much to learn about responsibility.” Catra frowns too, and meets her eyes determinedly, glaring at captain Weaver as if to dare her to fire her, if she’s so unsatisfied with Catra’s performance as a detective. Weaver stays quiet for a moment, and then just says: “Don’t let it happen again,” before returning to her office.

Lonnie returns and hands her a mug with coffee, but as soon as Catra takes a sip she realizes Lonnie put sugar in hers, and she cringes. This day is really off to a _great_ start.

It gets worse from there. Catra keeps having to remind herself that not everything Lonnie’s fault, or at least she doesn’t think it is, but that it’s just that their intel had been wrong. Though it seems to be wrong more often than right, lately, she thinks as they drive back from the fifth dead end of the day. It only serves to cement Catra’s realization that Adora had maybe been right about a mole in the department, passing on the FCPD’s movements to the gangs, giving them ample opportunity to hide or get away before Catra, Lonnie, or any of the other detectives reach their crime scenes. So, they spend the day driving around the city and being too late every time, finding only traces while reports of gang violence elsewhere in the city crackle through the radio. It’s infuriating.

At the end of the day, after spending an hour or so drowning her anger with cheap beer in her regular bar, Catra returns home. She distracts herself by making a quick dinner and eating it on the couch with the tv on. When it comes to cleaning up though, Catra opens the cupboard under the sink and suddenly realizes what has been missing from her apartment this entire evening. She-Ra’s sword, which she’d crammed so haphazardly beneath the sink the other night when Adora visited, is gone.

“Shit,” Catra mutters as she closes the cupboard with a slam. The idea that She-Ra somehow managed to find out where she lives, broke in and then probably searched her entire apartment before finding her sword beneath the sink is making her feel a little uneasy. It’s the first time in a while that Catra actually realizes that She-Ra truly doesn’t care about breaking the law here and there, as long as it gets her the opportunity to stop gang activities and violence. Of course there is a tentative trust between them now, originating from their common goal and shared thirst for justice, still in place even though Catra’s privacy has been seriously violated. Catra sighs and returns to the living room, grabbing her jacket from the couch and shrugging it on. The dishes can wait; if She-Ra’s got her sword back, she’s bound to show up in some shady part of the city, tonight.

 

Catra isn’t sure where to go, so she remembers the notebook in the bottom drawer of her desk at work and goes to the neighborhood with the most recent incidents, which is coincidentally also the neighborhood where she first encountered She-Ra. The park is as dark as it was that night, so Catra just watches it for any movement in the shadows and keeps to the street, that’s illuminated by the pale yellow streetlights.

She walks around like this for at least half an hour, her breath leaving her nostrils in thin white clouds as she scans street corners, dim lit alleys and dark parks, all coming up empty. At some point, small white snowflakes start drifting down, covering the deserted streets in a quickly thickening layer of white. Catra is just starting to think she might have gone out a little too rushed, her boots making soft crunching noises in the snow, when a strangled yelp sounds from somewhere in front of her. Picking up the pace, Catra walks on until she reaches another dark alley. She glances around the corner and finds almost exactly what she expected to find. Almost, because though there are three guys on the ground, seemingly unconscious and being covered in a thin layer of snow, there is a fourth one giving She-Ra trouble. Her sword is nowhere to be seen; probably lying discarded somewhere deeper in the narrow back street. She-Ra is currently too busy to find it anyway; she’s by no means a small woman, but this guy, who towers over her and must be twice her weight, has her in a headlock. There’s really only one thing that Catra can do.

“FCPD!” she yells as she turns the corner, gun drawn, the safety clicked off. “Let her go. Now.” The man just looks at Catra, who is standing several feet away, and smirks.

“Or what?” he answers, pulling his arm a little tighter around She-Ra’s neck, which elicits a painfully sounding groan from the vigilante. “You gonna shoot me?” Catra frowns and narrows her eyes. Her icy cold hands clench around the gun and her index finger tightens around the trigger, exerting pressure but not enough to pull it, yet. At least, not until she’s found her sweet spot; the guy’s shoulder. Catra blinks, exhales and curls her finger.

The sound of the shot bounces off the walls loudly as the guy lets She-Ra go and falls to the ground in pain, grabbing at his shoulder, his hand coming away red with blood. Catra is at She-Ra’s side instantly.

“Are you okay?” she says, quietly, as she curls an arm around the girl’s waist and holds her up. She-Ra shoots her a tired but grateful smile and nods as her hand comes up to touch her bruised neck. Her hood has fallen off in the struggle so her long, blonde hair comes tumbling down her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she says as she stands up a little straighter. Catra is still standing really close to her, and for the first time she really notices the height difference between them. With an awkward cough, Catra drops her arm, immediately missing the warmth of She-Ra’s soft hoodie. She looks at the guy she shot, who’s currently tainting the freshly fallen snow a bright red. He has a big, dark bat tattoo across his neck.

“No problem,” she says, before looking away and getting out her phone, quickly calling an ambulance and a squad car to take these people to the station. “So,” Catra says as soon as she’s done with that and She-Ra joins her side again, this time with the sword in hand. “What did these guys do, anyway?” She-Ra shrugs, stuffing her free hand in the pocket of her hoodie.

“Dealing,” she answers, the word leaving her mouth in a translucent white cloud. “The tall guy and the one on the right, there. The other two were buying. I haven’t checked but I think I saw some MDMA crystals and speed.” Catra whistles faintly.

“Impressive,” she says as she shoots She-Ra a grin. “Almost makes me forgive you breaking into my house.” She-Ra’s cheeks redden and she starts fiddling with the sword.

“Look, I—it was a necessary evil, alright?” the vigilante starts, looking at Catra with pleading eyes. “I just really need this to be able to do what I do, and I swear I didn’t look through any of your personal belongings, I just… I really needed the sword,” she finishes lamely. Catra lets out a laugh.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re a good criminal, I know,” she replies, bumping their shoulders together. She-Ra smiles back. There’s a pause in their playful conversation that suddenly has Catra thinking about her notebook again. She buries her cold hands into the pockets of het jacket a little further and regards the vigilante. “By the way,” Catra starts, kind of awkwardly. “I wanted to ask you something.” In the quiet of the dark alley, she can hear the sound of sirens getting closer. Their time together is dwindling.

“Hit me,” She-Ra says with a carefree smile. Catra smirks back, then puts on her serious face again.

“So, a… uh, a _friend_ of mine works as a journalist,” Catra starts, her voice wavering a little on the word ‘friend’. “She used to be my partner, but she quit because she believes there might be a mole at the FCPD. Her name is Adora.” Catra observes She-Ra’s face carefully as she says it, looking for any sign of recognition; to no avail, since the vigilante seems to have perfected her poker face. She’s still looking at Catra quietly, though her smile has disappeared. “You and I both know you target gangs, and only gangs,” Catra continues. “I was wondering if there’s a connection between your…” She glances at the men on the ground. “…activities, and the possibility that there is a mole at the department, that you’re trying to catch.” She-Ra takes a while to answer, looking at her feet, then at Catra, then back at her feet.

“Yeah. You’re right. I believe that what your friend thinks is true,” she says, eventually. “There has to be a reason why the FCPD can’t do its job the way it used to. My ‘activities’, as you call them—” A crooked smirk accompanies the words. “—they help, in picking up the slack. But things can’t go on like this forever.” Catra shivers a little in the cold.

“I know,” she answers, looking down. The snow is still falling down steadily, and the sirens sound like they’re coming closer. Catra thinks about the approaching officers and she hates the way she can’t trust them, or Lonnie, or Weaver and anyone else on the force, really. Her eyes meet She-Ra’s again and the look in them is tranquil and determined. She-Ra has no ulterior motives. She only wants justice, and the city to be safe at night, just like Catra. She sighs and it comes out as a dissipating cloud. “I… I want to help you,” Catra says when she eventually speaks. “I don’t care that you don’t always do things according to the law. Adora was right. _You_ are right.” She frowns and bites down on her lower lip. “Things need to change.” The smile She-Ra gives her is nothing like any of the other ones she’s shown Catra. It’s a little sad, a little happy, but most of all it clearly expresses the sense of trust Catra feels whenever she thinks about the vigilante.

“Does this mean what I think it means?” She-Ra asks, still smiling a little, while strapping the sword to her back. She is right to do so; the sirens are mere blocks away, now.

“Depends on what you think it means,” Catra replies while she raises an eyebrow and regards the vigilante. She-Ra just shrugs.

“I think what you just said sounds an awful lot like wanting to team up,” she says, pulling the hood back over her head before tucking her hands back into the front pocket of her hoodie, mirroring Catra in her stance. “And I’m all for it. God knows it would make my job a little more bearable.” Catra huffs a laugh.

“Yeah, me too,” she mutters. Then Catra pulls her right hand out of her pocket and holds it out between them. “What do you say? Want to be partners?” She-Ra’s smile widens and she firmly grabs Catra’s icy cold hand with her own, warm one.

“It would be my pleasure, partner,” she says, squeezing her hand before letting go, murmuring a quick, “see ya,” before running off.

Catra is still standing in the alley when the ambulance arrives, her curly hair in the process of becoming completely covered in tiny, crystalline snowflakes while she thinks about how familiar it feels to hear that word out of the vigilante’s mouth.

***

A week passes like nothing happened. Catra gets antsy at times throughout it, wanting to talk with She-Ra some more, if only to brainstorm about possible perpetrators, motifs and connections. But it’s not like she has the vigilante’s number and it seems like She-Ra is laying low. It’s understandable, Catra supposes, with how determined Weaver seems to be in catching the girl. The department has had to endure two more pep talks about the dangers of the community intervening in gang conflicts, and everybody who is available is working the case now. Beat cops patrol the neighborhoods with the most sightings, detectives are scouring every available piece of footage for any clue to who the vigilante might be, and Catra is left in the chaos of it all, feeling a little pointless.

It feels strange, that the whole department is focusing its attention on the vigilante when what they _should_ be doing is work to prevent the drug war that’s on the verge of breaking loose. There have been more reports of gun violence, more victims, and more drugs and weapons being channeled into the city. The Black Garnet Gang and the Horde Crime Syndicate are getting more territorial and all the FCPD is doing is chasing after the one person trying to prevent it. Catra is slowly becoming absolutely sick of it. She needs to _do_ something.

Impatiently, she raps on the door to captain Weaver’s office.

“What?” Weaver calls from within, sounding as impatient and annoyed as ever. With a sigh, Catra opens to door and lets herself in. She closes it again and stands in front of Weaver, who seems fully emerged in the report on her desk. “Detective. What can I do for you?” she asks when Catra doesn’t speak. “Any new developments on the vigilante case?”

“Uh, not exactly,” Catra answers. She sticks her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and looks at around the office restlessly. “This is about Black Garnet and the Horde.” Weaver raises an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“And what about them?” Her gaze pierces through Catra and she swallows, steeling her resolve.

“I’m sure you will agree this gang war is about to escalate. I want to put a stop to it and I believe the best way to do so is to infiltrate one of the gangs,” she says. “I want to go undercover.” Captain Weaver is silent for a moment, then motions for Catra to sit.

“Tell me more,” she says, leaning her chin on her folded hands, and Catra grins.

She lays it all out for the captain. Her entry strategy, her plan of attack, possible exit plans in case the need arises, and the end goal. “If everything goes according to plan we can take down Black Garnet,” Catra says enthusiastically, leaning forward in her chair. “Then the war will end and we can take our time in building a solid case against the Horde, before moving on them, too.” Weaver regards her calmly, a small smile appearing on her face.

“Very well,” she answers, untangling her hands and leaning backwards in the office chair. “I will allow you the resources and time you need, under the condition that you give me regular updates on your progress.” Catra grins happily, before standing up.

“You can count on it, ma’am!” she says enthusiastically, before all but running out of the office to find Rogelio and tell him about her new assignment.

“Hey, Jelly!” Catra calls excitedly as she enters the breakroom, ignoring the other beat cops lunching there. Rogelio is at the kitchenette, pouring coffee into a mug and handing it to the rookie, Kyle.

“Hey, Cat,” he answers, shooting her a crooked grin. “What’s up? I’ve never seen you coming out of Weaver’s office looking that happy.” Catra can’t help but grin back widely, flashing her teeth as she snatches the coffeepot from his hands, puts it back on the burner and drags him out of the room. She marches across the bullpen to the stairwell in the back, dragging Rogelio along by his wrist.

“Sorry,” Catra says when the door to the stairwell closes behind them, and drops his arm. “It’s actually top secret, classified information.” Especially with a mole in the department, she thinks. All of a sudden the doubt creeps in, because can Catra really trust Rogelio, despite him being her oldest friend, here? Maybe not. Catra bites down on her lip softly and starts walking, taking the stairs two at a time to the roof as she mulls it over. Rogelio follows silently.

“What’s so top secret that you had to drag me all the way out here for?” he asks once they’re standing on the flat roof of the building, overlooking the city. Catra buries her hands in the pockets of her jeans, her bare arms rippling with goosebumps almost instantly in the freezing wind.

“Okay, so, prepare yourself,” she tells her oldest friend with a small grin. Rogelio simply crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. Catra rolls her eyes; Jelly has never been one for the dramatics. “Weaver is letting me run an undercover operation,” she says, giggling at the prospect and at the way Rogelio’s eyes widen in surprise and, without a doubt, a bit of pride.

“No way,” he says, still a little dumbfounded. “How? Isn’t every detective on the vigilante case right now?” Catra shrugs.

“I don’t care how caught up she is in that,” she says, expression turning grim, “even Weaver can’t ignore the dangers of an all-out gang war in the city. That incident with Lonnie and the vigilante last week was only a taste of what’s to come.”

“You said it,” Rogelio sighs as he sits down and leans against the wall that separates their building from the next. It’s typical Fright City architecture; climb the walls separating the roofs and you can make it from here to the end of the block. Catra joins him and shivers. It’s winter, maybe she should’ve thought to bring a jacket.

“So, what do you think?” she asks, regarding Rogelio calmly. He keeps his gaze fixed on some far-off point on the horizon.

“I think you’re about to put yourself in an unnecessary amount of danger,” he says eventually, in that low voice of his. “I always think that, though. And you always end up okay.” Catra chuckles at that and Rogelio meets her eyes. “As long as you keep being careful. You only get one shot at this, you know.”

“That’s unconfirmed,” Catra huffs, leaning against him a little bit. “I might still get nine.” Rogelio chuckles too, a low rumble that vibrates throughout his body. Enough cat jokes have been made at Catra’s expense throughout her life, but this one from their shared time as cadets at the Academy has stuck, somehow. “By the way, Rogelio,” Catra continues, “there is something else, too.” Rogelio looks at her expectantly, and under the gaze of her best friend and closest ally, Catra opens up about her conversations with She-Ra and their shared suspicions. It’s likely a bad move from a detective’s perspective, but Catra has known for a while now that she’d have to have to put her trust in someone within the force eventually, because she will never be able to find out who is leaking info all on her own. Especially now with the undercover operation, she’s going to need a friendly at the home front. And there is no question that Rogelio is the only one she even remotely trusts, there.

Rogelio keeps quiet the entire time, eyes on Catra as she tells him about all of the encounters, all the conversations, all the details about She-Ra that she’s known for months but never bothered to share with anyone. It’s treason and they both know it, but the grim set to his mouth and the frown that etches into his features when she talks about the double agent within their department tell Catra that he’s on her side, undoubtedly.

“So why go undercover,” he asks when she’s all done. “Why now? Don’t you want to keep an eye on things, here?”

“I’ve thought about that,” Catra answers, leaning her head back against rough brick and turning her eyes to the endlessly tumultuous sky. “It’s just that… this takes precedence. And if there even _is_ a mole, which I still don’t know a hundred percent sure, they’ve been working undetected for a while now. If I infiltrate one of the gangs and find the connection with the department, I can put a stop to everything, all at once.”

“And what if you don’t choose right?” Rogelio counters. “Say you infiltrate Black Garnet, but the mole plays for the Horde. What then?” Catra worries her lip. She thinks about what Adora said, about having solid proof of a connection to Black Garnet. That would be a good place to start, it being the less structured gang of the two. She’s starting to freeze, sitting in the biting wind without her jacket.

“I don’t know,” Catra says, truthfully. Then she gets to her feet, and pulls Rogelio up, too. “It’s a risk I’m going to have to take. But it doesn’t matter,” she says as they go back inside and down the stairs. “If we take out one of them, we force the other to the forefront. So, we’ll get both Black Garnet and the Horde either way.” Rogelio just grins and clasps her shoulder as they reenter the bullpen.

“No matter how you end up doing it,” he says, “if anyone can bring a criminal organization down from the inside, it’s you.”

 

With her new plan just standing by, waiting to be executed and with Rogelio in the know, Catra thinks it’s her duty to inform She-Ra. They’re partners now, after all, and for Catra there is nothing but honesty between partners. At least, partners who aren’t Lonnie. Also, she seriously needs to know what She-Ra has on Black Garnet before Catra can even think to start her plan. She has to know all there is to know before she starts something she can’t come back from.

Since it seems to be the only way to seek out the vigilante, Catra takes to the street again that night. A short subway ride takes her to a shady part of town, where she just starts walking around, aimlessly.

She has just taken a couple steps into a dim lit park when someone jumps down from a tree behind her. Catra turns around in a flash, the hairs in her neck standing up in surprise, her hands already raised in fists to attack whoever just startled her so badly when she sees who it is.

“Did you have to do that?” she mutters as she lowers her hands and stuffs them back in her pockets. She-Ra only grins, obviously very pleased with herself.

“I mean, I didn’t _have_ to,” she says smiling. “It’s just so entertaining. You looked super fearsome just now.” Catra rolls her eyes and huffs, but she can’t help the smile that slides on her face.

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” she answers, turning around and walking off, out of the park. “Come on, partner, we’ve got things to discuss.”

A short walk finds them at a hole in the wall diner at the outskirts of the bustling city center. It’s started raining so Catra hurries inside, strips off her wet jacket and sits down at a booth in the back. She-Ra smoothly slides in the seat opposite to her.

“So, what’s up?” she asks as she pulls down her hood, freeing tendrils of shiny blonde hair. Catra opens her mouth to speak, but just at that moment a boy with a dirty white apron comes up to their table and asks for their order.

“Just a coffee, please,” Catra murmurs, though it’s more to get the kid off her back than anything.

She-Ra seems to think differently, though, because she beams at the boy and says: “Waffles and an iced tea, please, thanks!” The boy jots it down on his notepad and walks off. Then She-Ra’s smile vanishes as abruptly as it had come. “Uh… shoot, I just remembered. I don’t have any money on me right now.” She gestures at the vigilante getup offhandedly and shoots Catra a sheepish smile. Catra sighs with a small smile.

“That’s okay. It’s my treat,” she replies, crossing her arms and leaning back in the booth. She-Ra’s smile turns into a genuine one.

“Thanks, detective,” she says. Catra raises an eyebrow at that.

“You can call me by my name when it’s just the two of us, you know. Especially now that we’re partners.”

“But you’ve never told me your name,” She-Ra replies, leaning forward slightly as she places her elbow on the grimy table and rests her head on her hand.

“I haven’t?” Catra asks, surprised. She-Ra smiles at her again.

“I’ve been calling you ‘detective grumpy’ in my head for, what, weeks now,” she chuckles.

“I’m not grumpy,” Catra growls, frowning. She-Ra’s grin just widens while Catra realizes that she’s pouting at the vigilante, and her cheeks heat up. “I’m _not_ ,” she murmurs, looking away from She-Ra’s shining eyes and to the kitchen, hoping the kid comes back with their orders, soon. “Anyway, my name is Catra.”

“Catra,” She-Ra hums, and Catra can feel her cheeks redden with how intimate and strangely familiar it suddenly sounds, coming out of the vigilante’s mouth. “Sounds nice. I like it.”

“It’s kind of stupid,” Catra shrugs. She can see the kid from before making his way to their booth. “I guess they ran out of good names at the orphanage.” She-Ra looks shocked; her mouth hangs open slightly, like she wants to say something, but then the boy is there and placing a mug, a plate of steaming waffles and a tall iced tea on their table.

“Enjoy,” he murmurs before leaving again. Catra takes a careful sip of the scalding coffee and looks at She-Ra again, who is still looking positively shocked.

“Your waffles are getting cold,” she murmurs. She-Ra doesn’t seem to hear her.

“Wait,” she says, ignoring the waffles. “You were an orphan, too?” Catra raises an eyebrow questioningly.

“What do you mean, ‘too’?” she asks, while leaning forward the slightest bit. She-Ra stays put and doesn’t look away.

“I had no idea,” she whispers softly. It makes Catra feel small and weak, like this tiny and insignificant thing from her pasts has somehow completely changed the way She-Ra sees her, and she loathes it.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like that matters now, does it?” she speaks through gritted teeth. “I’m grown up, you’re grown up. No use crying over the past.”

“No—Catra, I’m sorry,” She-Ra says quickly, grabbing one of the hands Catra’s folded around the mug with her own. “It’s just… I’ve been there. My parents gave me up, too. I guess I just never expected for us to be… so similar.” Catra snorts.

“Why, because we’re on opposite sides of the law?”

“Well, yes, that too,” She-Ra shrugs. “But most of all, I think you’re such a good detective, and you’re always _so_ strong.” Catra allows a small smile back on her face at the compliment.

“And you’re not?” she replies. She-Ra just shrugs again, ducking her head down and pulling back her hand before starting on her waffles. If Catra looks a little closer, she can see a hint of red on the vigilante’s cheeks. She huffs a laugh and gets back to her coffee.

When her coffee is almost gone and She-Ra’s plate of waffles is empty, Catra decides it’s time to broach the topic she’d sought the vigilante out for in the first place.

“Okay, so, I need to tell you about something,” she starts. She-Ra is still chewing and looks at her expectantly. “Adora, my friend who works at the Bright Moon Herald, says they have proof of a connection between the Black Garnet Gang and someone in the FCPD, so I’ve talked it over with the captain and she’s allowed me to start an undercover operation.” She-Ra’s eyes widen as she swallows. “I thought you should know, with us being partners and everything,” Catra finishes lamely.

“You’re serious?” She-Ra replies, expression filled with disbelief. Catra just diverts her eyes and finishes her coffee. “Of course you’re serious. When are you _not_ serious,” the vigilante continues, rambling. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”

“Well, yeah,” Catra answers. “But it’s the best approach to this whole mole thing. Nothing is going to happen if I just stay at the department in the hopes of discovering something, I need to chase this. The best way to do that is to infiltrate Black Garnet.” She-Ra stays silent for a moment, taking careful sips of her iced tea. “But before I start, I wanted to coordinate our information,” Catra continues. “How much do you know, exactly?”

“Not that much, unfortunately,” She-Ra answers. “My main focus has been on getting these gang bangers off the streets. You should ask your friend what exactly it is she’s found.” She pushes the still half full iced tea in forwards on the table and stands up. “Thank you for telling me, Catra. I’d tell you to be careful, but… I think we both know that’s not going to stop you from going through with this.” She-Ra smiles, wistfully. “And thanks for the waffles.” Then the vigilante pulls up her hood and Catra realizes she’s about to leave.

“Wait!” she says quickly, before She-Ra can walk away. “There’s one more thing. I… might have told Rogelio about you. About us. About everything, really.” She-Ra’s eyes are unreadable, but she doesn’t look mad, so Catra chalks it up as a win for their partnership.

“Okay,” she says, eventually. “I trust your judgement. See you around, partner.” With that, she shoots Catra one last smile and walks away, out of the diner and back into the rain.

***

The black screen of her phone gleams in the soft light of the lamp above her dinner table. Catra sighs and picks it up, twirling it around in her hands a couple of times before putting it down again. She should call Adora. She showed up unannounced at Catra’s apartment last time, so Catra can call her unannounced too, right? She sighs and puts the phone down again. It still feels a little weird.

After Adora left the force, Catra, who had been left feeling so very betrayed, had done about everything to get her out of her life. She deleted all the pictures of them together off her phone, removed all of Adora’s favorite songs from her playlists, even unfriended her on Facebook. The phone number she kept, but just for emergencies.

And isn’t now one of those emergencies? Catra unlocks her phone and opens her contact list. Adora is at the very top, her name and picture glaring at Catra, telling her to get over herself and just make the call. Do it for the mission, she thinks, do it because She-Ra trusts you, and is counting on you. Do it because you told Rogelio you’d be careful. Catra grits her teeth and presses the button.

The phone rings a few times before Adora picks up.

“Catra, hey! I was just on my way to see you,” she says as soon as the call connects. Catra pauses.

“Why?” she asks. As far as she knows, Adora had said about everything there was to say the last time she showed up at Catra’s apartment. “Did you find out something new?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Adora answers, talking loudly to keep the harsh wind from drowning her out. “I’m almost there.”

“Okay,” Catra says, before hanging up the phone. Soon enough, the bell rings and outside Catra’s front door stands Adora, dripping rainwater all over the hallway. Silently, Catra lets her in. “So, what’s new?” she asks as Adora drapes her wet coat over one of the chairs at the dinner table.

“Straight to business, huh?” Adora answers with a small smile as she pushes her glasses a bit higher on her nose. “You haven’t changed a bit, partner.”

It’s such a small word, but it lies at the foundation of the biggest realization Catra has probably ever had, in her entire life. She’s just sinking into the couch as Adora says it, completely obvious to the way Catra’s eyes widen and her breath catches in her throat.

Adora has called her ‘partner’ probably a million times before, but now causes every piece of the puzzle about this entire vigilante business to suddenly slot into place simultaneously, allowing Catra to see the big picture for the first time in the months since this whole thing started.

It’s not that the first time she ever saw She-Ra was in Adora’s neighborhood. It’s not that She-Ra seems to have known the ins and outs of their files on Black Garnet and the Horde from the very beginning. It’s not their extreme physical likeness, or the way Catra recalls muscles rippling underneath a thin FCPD t-shirt whenever she thinks about She-Ra’s strength in wielding the sword. It’s not even that She-Ra ordered waffles, Adora’s favorite food. In the end, it’s the way Adora calls her ‘partner’, the way she has done so many times before, that has Catra realize it sounds the exact same way it had out of the vigilante’s mouth: intimate, trusting; caring, even.

“Holy fucking shit,” Catra whispers as Adora sits down next to her on the couch. “It’s _you_. You’re She-Ra.”

Adora just looks at her, eyes as wide as Catra’s in shock, and her mouth opens and closes a couple of times before she squeaks out a strangled: “What? No, I’m not?” Catra clenches her jaw and locks her eyes with Adora’s.

“You were always a bad liar,” she says. Then, to herself: “God, how did I not see it before?” Adora wears glasses and her hair up, always. She-Ra wears her hair down and probably, most likely has contact lenses. Other than that… there is absolutely no difference. Suddenly Catra feels impossibly thickheaded. She’s spent more time with the vigilante than anyone, how the hell had she not realized this before? Adora’s warm hand on her arm breaks Catra out of her rambling thoughts.

“It’s okay,” Adora says softly, with an unsure smile. “I mean, it’s easy to miss when you’re not considering the possibility.” Catra looks at her with a frown.

“We worked together for _two years_ , Adora,” she mutters, pouting. “I’m a detective, I’m supposed to detect shit like this.” She groans and lets her face fall into her hands, while Adora keeps stroking up and down her arm in a comforting gesture.

“It’s okay,” she says again. “I mean, you’re the first one to figure it out. That has to count for something, right?” Catra lifts her head up and meets Adora’s eyes. They’re warm and kind, and when she ignores the glasses she sees the trust she knows from She-Ra’s grey blue irises looking back at her.

“I mean, I guess that’s true,” she murmurs, heaving a sigh. “Still. I should’ve known you wouldn’t be able to quit being a detective entirely. You’re way too stubborn.” Adora snorts, and just like that all of the tension from the revelation flows out of the room. Outside, the rain is tapping a comforting rhythm against Catra’s windows, while she chuckles along with Adora at the ridiculousness of it all.

 

The comfortable silence that follows Catra’s epiphany allows her to recall what she called Adora for in the first place. It’s almost hard to remember, in the comfortable warmth of her apartment, and things are made even more distracting by Adora’s hand that’s still on her arm and the knowledge that finally, there are no more secrets between them.

“So, back in the diner,” Catra starts, “you told me that you, or She-Ra-you, didn’t have any more information. And that I should ask you, I mean Adora-you, about what you know.” Catra throws her head back and looks at the ceiling as she sighs. “God, this is confusing.” Adora just grins.

“Well, yes. For the sake of my secret identity I had to keep pretending not to know anything,” she answers, her hand still holding onto Catra’s arm loosely. “But I do.” Adora sighs and Catra shifts a little closer to her on the couch, so their knees are touching. “It might turn out to be nothing, but…”

“Tell me,” Catra says, her voice soft but insistent. Adora gazes into her eyes.

“Okay,” she says. “I was still your partner when this happened. Do you remember that heroin bust on Lincoln and Fifth?”

“Yeah,” Catra hums. Somewhere in this last minute, Adora’s hand has slid down her arm, her wrist, and into Catra’s. Softly, she squeezes it. “Where Mara was killed.” Adora nods and looks down. Mara had been one of the best detectives at the department. She was shot in the thigh and died on the spot. The perpetrators got away.

“I know it sounds crazy, but… I was helping out Internal Affairs with something back then. I probably would’ve missed it entirely if I hadn’t been combing through the precincts phone records for that case.”

“What?” Catra asks, her voice little more than a whisper. Her hand is clinging to Adora’s now, while a heavy, almost nauseating dread settles in her abdomen.

“This was the same week as…” Adora clenches her jaw. “Anyway. I recognized the address, then the date. Someone tipped them off ahead of time. And—God, Catra, I couldn’t ignore that, but I couldn’t involve _you_ either.” Her pale blue eyes are filled with unshed tears and apologies, and Catra can’t stand it because she knows Adora; she knows herself, too. Who would she be to get mad for not being involved when she would’ve done the exact the same thing? Adora blinks as a tear escapes from the corner of her eye and instantly Catra throws her arms around her partner, pulling her close into a tight embrace.

“I can’t believe you’ve just been walking around with this,” Catra murmurs into Adora’s neck. “How long has it been, now… six months? It feels so much longer.” Adora chuckles, but it’s wry and somber, so Catra starts stroking down and up her back gently.

“I know,” she mutters into Catra’s shoulder. “Sorry, by the way.” That only makes Catra tighten her arms around her friend, and she briefly wonders if she could just hold Adora like this, forever. Just never let go ever again.

“Don’t apologize,” she replies. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get this asshole.” Catra feels Adora’s arms tighten around her waist and she closes her eyes, taking in everything about the way this feels; comforting, familiar and above all, strengthening. “You and me,” Catra whispers. “Together.”

***

The first few weeks are hard. Although less structured and organized than the Horde, the Black Garnet Gang is wary towards outsiders, and earning their trust goes slower than Catra had anticipated beforehand. She’s done mostly courier work up until now, simple tasks like getting a gun from one place in the city to another, or supplying a street dealer with a fresh load of product, or stashing the profits in one of Black Garnet’s safe houses.

Her updates to the captain are sporadic as a result; though her tasks are anything but meaningful—Catra suspects some don’t even serve a purpose other than for her to prove her worth and loyalty to the gang—they keep her busy enough. Despite hearing rumors of She-Ra getting involved in gang business, she hasn’t spoken Adora in a long time, either.

Still. It’s for a worthy cause. About a month after she first approached a Black Garnet dealer on a street corner, Catra has worked her way up to doing jobs for Scorpia, who oversees all of Black Garnet’s operations in Fright City. She hasn’t been able to find out if there are other heads to this hydra or if Scorpia really is the only one controlling the gang, but there is still time for that. Especially since Scorpia seems to have taken a liking to her.

Catra is sitting in the backseat of a black Mercedes, staring out of the window, through the rain drops running down it into the night. The rain is drumming on the roof of the car relentlessly and the sound is making Catra anxious. She isn’t carrying a weapon and hasn’t been for the past month, but tonight is the first time her hands are really itching to hold her FCPD issued SIG Sauer again. Catra balls her hands into fists, then relaxes them again and rubs her palms back and forth over her jeans.

“Patience, young Padawan,” Scorpia says. “You’ll need it, especially in this line of work.” She’s still smiling calmly, despite the fact that they’ve been sitting here, unmoving, for an hour already. Even so, Catra has noticed the casual glances at her watch increasing in frequency as time progresses, and she wonders how much longer it’ll be before Scorpia calls it quits. Just as she thinks this, a car rolls up to where their car is parked. “Catra,” Scorpia speaks, giving her a meaningful look. “Please, would you let Miss Octavia in?” Catra nods quickly and leans over the backseat to get the umbrella from the trunk.

It’s standard procedure, especially in weather like this. Catra gets out of the car, instantly cursing and shuddering at how the rain soaks into her hair and drips down her neck. Her leather jacket isn’t built for this kind of storm, Catra thinks, a little miffed. She grits her teeth, opens the umbrella and walks over to the other car, a silver BMW. She knocks on the door once and holds the umbrella away from herself, and over the car door. A moment later it opens and out steps Octavia. She’s an imposing woman, not as tall as Scorpia but certainly bigger than Catra. The most striking features about her must be her flowing red hair and the way she underlines her green eyes with a thick stripe of eyeliner. She doesn’t spare Catra a second glance, briskly walking over to the Mercedes instead. Catra moves with her, keeping the umbrella over her head until Octavia has opened the door and slid onto the backseat, next to Scorpia.

The meeting doesn’t take long. After ten minutes the door opens again and Catra quickly holds up the umbrella again. Octavia looks entirely the same; there’s no detectible smile or scowl on her face for Catra to determine how it went. She’s the exact opposite of Scorpia, Catra thinks, who is even more of an open book than Adora. The BMW speeds away as soon as Octavia has slammed the door shut behind her, almost driving over Catra’s toes and leaving her there, getting drenched outside in an otherwise abandoned parking lot. With a frown, Catra walks back to the Mercedes and steps in.

“Meeting go okay?” she asks as soon as she’s back inside and the umbrella is back in the trunk, ignoring the way she’s dripping water all over the leather seats. Scorpia is smiling as she runs her hand through her short, white hair.

“Yeah. Certainly worth the wait, I can tell you,” she answers. Catra raises an eyebrow, waiting for the mob boss to continue. Scorpia instead taps their driver on the shoulder, who starts the engine and takes them away from the industrial parking lot and back into the city. “She offered me the secure supply route I’ve had my eye for a while now, on in exchange for a twenty-five per cent profit margin on all the product that will come through there.” Scorpia grins and chuckles briefly. “I offered her fifteen and a promise not to rip out her throat right where she sat.” She starts full on laughing at that and Catra has to grimace at the ruthlessness and at the same time, utter nonchalance of her boss. Scorpia doesn’t seem it half of the time, but she is truly a force to be reckoned with in the criminal underbelly of Fright City.

“I guess that’s what they mean with a ‘cut throat business environment’,” Catra mutters, smirking a little at her own quip. Scorpia bursts into laughter once more.

“This is why I like you, kitty,” she says when she’s calmed down again, while slapping Catra on the shoulder affectionately with her strong, broad hand. “You have the best sense of humor.” Catra’s grin widens, though the nickname has her cringing. If it were anyone else calling her that, she’d have made some threats of throat-out-ripping herself.

“So, what about this supply route?” Catra asks, feeling a little brave in the confines of this car, away from the rain and the outside world for a second with Scorpia, who is still wearing a wide smile. Scorpia meets her gaze head-on, her dark eyes set in a calm focus, a sharper than one might expect. It’s nothing new to Catra.

“What about it?” is all Scorpia says.

“I’m just curious where it would enter the city,” Catra answers. “And to what extent it’s going to take the strain off of current routes.” And who’s running it; and how the route goes, exactly; and for how long Scorpia is planning on using it. There are a ton of questions Catra doesn’t ask, but she already feels like she’s asked too much. She gets the feeling she’s right when Scorpia grins, though it’s a lot less playful and a little more malicious than earlier.

“That’s need-to-know, kitty,” Scorpia says as her eyes bore into Catra’s for a moment, before she turns her attention back out of the windshield. “You better watch out too, you know. As they say, curiosity killed the cat. And we don’t want that happening to you, do we?” Catra swallows once, feeling a little on edge.

“No ma’am.”

 

Thank God, Scorpia lets her go after that. With no more meetings to go to and useless errands to run, Catra wanders around the streets of Fright City. She should go home and write a report for Weaver, now that she finally has the time. Catra sighs as she runs a hand through her hair. It starting to rain again, though this time they’re tiny droplets compared to the downpour from earlier. She pulls the collar of her jacket a little higher against the wind and shoots a glance behind her.

There’s another tail following her, this time a young boy who doesn’t seem too bothered with keeping his distance. It’s become a common occurrence ever since Catra became a permanent addition to the gang. She hasn’t asked Scorpia about it, partly out of a fear of making herself seem unnecessarily untrustworthy, and partly because she understands. Running a gang is a dangerous undertaking, so it makes sense that she’d want to keep tabs on every new face. So Catra keeps walking, not to her tiny flat but to one of the clubs that she knows is a part of Black Garnet territory.

It’s a Friday night but it’s still early, so when Catra steps in the music isn’t yet as booming and the dancefloor isn’t yet as crowded as she knows it will be. Feeling a little out of place under the colorful spotlights and flashing strobe lights, Catra finds herself a place at the bar and signals the bartender for a drink. The beer is a mainstream brand and not something she would have ever gotten at her regular cop bar, but Catra bears with it as she gets out her phone and writes a quick text to Adora: _wyd?_

The answer comes within the minute. _You’ve been undercover for a month, is this honestly the first thing you’re saying to me,_ says the text. Catra just grins and takes another swig of her beer.

 _I was being serious,_ she writes back. _I have some free time. Want to meet up?_

 _Sure, my place?_ Adora answers.

 _Okay_ , Catra responds, _see u soon partner_. Reluctantly she takes another few sips, if only because the drinks at this bar are ridiculously overpriced, before deciding to just leave the still half full bottle for the drab brew it is and leaving it on the bar.

Once she steps outside, Catra notices her tail smoking a couple of yards away. It’s drizzling steadily and he’s looking right at her, but once he sees her stepping out of the bar, he drops his cigarette and lights a new one. Catra rolls her eyes and starts walking.

Adora’s place is about five minutes away, so Catra figures she has about four blocks to shake her tail. As soon as she rounds the corner, she takes off in a sprint; running with high paced, great strides until she finds a back alley and slips into its shadows. Her chest is heaving and Catra feels tiny droplets of rain mix with the sweat on her forehead as she takes a second to catch her breath. Resisting the urge to make sure he’s really gone, Catra pulls up her collar again and keeps on walking the last couple of blocks to the flat.

“Hey, Adora,” Catra says with a grin as the door opens and she’s met with her partner. Adora shoots her a wide smile at the familiar greeting and steps out into the hallway, into Catra’s space; putting her arms around Catra’s shoulders instantaneously and pulling her into a tight hug. “You miss me?” Catra asks as soon as she lets go. She means for it to come out casually, but the way Adora looks at her and smiles a tentatively when she steps back makes it feel all too serious all of a sudden; so Catra just grabs Adora’s hand and walks past her through the doorway, pulling her partner along inside. “So, what’s up with you?” she asks as she lets Adora go and plops down on the couch. Adora messes around in the kitchen for a bit before reappearing in the living room with two empty mugs.

“Not much,” she answers as Catra grabs some coasters and puts them on the table right before Adora sets down the mugs. It’s an almost automatic movement, because Catra remembers how adamant Adora is about using coasters on her antique mahogany coffee table, and she’s never really thought about that before but now it makes her pause. Maybe Rogelio really had been onto something when he said she and Adora made a good team. The girl in question sits down next to her on the couch and their shoulders brush, shaking Catra out of her reverie. “Coffee will be ready in a minute. You still take it black, right?” Catra smiles.

“Only as black as my soul,” she answers, grinning. Adora returns it.

“Come on, Catra,” she replies. “As much as you like to pretend otherwise, you have a heart of gold and we both know it.” Catra doesn’t agree, but she doesn’t deny it either. Instead, she asks how the journalist business is treating Adora, quietly basking in being able to for a moment pretend that she’s not holed up in the lions’ den, and Adora isn’t equally putting her life on the line with only a sword and some Kevlar, every night.

She updates Adora on everything she knows, though it’s not a lot. It’s the same concrete information Catra has written in her reports to the captain, with additions of her general feelings about some things.

“They don’t trust me, yet,” Catra says, looking at the steamy, murky depths in the mug between her hands. “Not all of them, not entirely. Though I’m getting close to the leader, Scorpia.”

“The buff white-haired lady, right?” Adora asks. When Catra raises an eyebrow at her, she shrugs and says: “I’ve seen her a couple of times, doing busts as She-Ra.”

“I would tell you you’re crazy,” Catra says as she smirks at her friend, “but you would never listen to me. We’re too much alike.” She pauses. “Besides, I think I did call you crazy at some point.” Adora chuckles.

“You did,” she answers with a reminiscent smile. “After that shootout, at Blue Ridge and Pacific.” Catra’s eyes glaze over a little as she remembers that day; the fear, the exhilaration and all of that, sure. But most of all she remembers talking about trust, She-Ra’s arms around her, and a soft voice, saying: “Someone I know was just really into that cartoon when she was a kid,” which—

“You were talking about me, weren’t you? Damn,” Catra mutters, taking another sip. “Back then, when you explained your vigilante name,” she elaborates with narrowed eyes at Adora’s questioning gaze. Her eyes quickly crinkle as she smiles softly.

“Yes. I don’t know why I remembered that you liked the She-Ra cartoons as a kid, but I guess it struck me as uplifting. I mean, your drive has always inspired me, even back on the force,” Adora answers quietly. “And She-Ra is a badass. It fitted.” Catra smiles.

“Yeah,” she agrees. It’s a combination of Adora, her words and the way they’re sitting close together; also the coffee clutched between her hands, all accumulating into a feeling of warmth Catra hasn’t experienced for a long time. Not since before this winter or even the fall started. Adora returns her smile and Catra feels her cheeks warm up, along with the rest of her body.

 

It’s late when Catra finally leaves Adora’s apartment. A cold gale wind cuts into her as she rounds a corner and Catra shivers once, violently, while zipping her jacket closed with cold fingers. After having spent the entire evening in the balmy warmth of Adora’s living room, her guard down for the first time in weeks, the icy wind is a harsh reminder that she’s back in the dog-eat-dog world they actually live in. Catra gets her burner phone out of her pocket and fumbles with the tiny buttons, checking to see if she has any missed texts from Scorpia and coming up empty. With a sigh, Catra pushes the phone back into the back pocket of her jeans.

No new assignments, so no more excuses to keep postponing the writing of another report for Weaver. Catra is mulling things over in her thoughts as she stalks down the street, thinking about the most important things to put in the report, briefly debating whether to put it in chronological order or order of importance, when the movement of a metal gleam in the corner of her eye catches her attention.

Catra only has her instincts as a trained cop to thank for the way her body moves when she feels the freezing barrel of a gun being pressed against the nape of her neck; she ducks as she twists and is able to grip the top of the barrel, pushing it towards the ground just as her assailant pulls the trigger. The bang is loud and a little disorienting, but Catra’s experience carries her through the motions that come next. With her hand still clenching the top of the gun, she can feel the shell casing of the previous shot pressing against her palm. Catra pulls the gun toward her now that it’s jammed, fast and hard, and punches the shooter in his stomach as he comes flying forward. She recognizes her tail from before, as he groans and Catra pulls the gun from his grasp while she swiftly kicks his legs out from under him.

“Who are you,” she hisses through gritted teeth. Her fingers are shaking, probably due to the adrenaline rushing through her veins, but Catra manages to get the shell casing out and the gun loaded again. “What the hell do you want from me,” she exclaims as she looks down the barrel, at the boy. He grins wryly.

“Isn’t that obvious?” he mutters with a raspy voice. The streetlight falls on his chest as he looks up at her, illuminating a black gemstone on a thin, silver chain. It must be the icy wind that’s picking up again, Catra thinks as she feels a relentless shudder roll down her spine. The boy keeps looking at her, a resigned look in his eyes. Catra is suddenly painfully aware of their situation; she, a somewhat high ranked—insofar the Black Garnet Gang can be said to have ranks—gang member, pointing a gun at a street level goon who just attempted to murder her, here in the middle of the night, on the middle of an abandoned street. Rationally, Catra knows what’s expected of her. She doesn’t know this kid, so his attack isn’t a personal one but ordered; and now he expects her to quite literally kill the messenger. Catra takes a deep breath and wills her shaking hands to still around the gun.

“Get up,” she says, quieter this time. “Scram.” And then, after the boy just stays down, staring at her with disbelieving eyes: “Get the fuck out of my face before I change my mind.” That does the trick. Without looking back, he takes off in a rush. Catra watches him go until he disappears in the dark of night. Only then she allows herself to take a step back, rest her back against a cold stone wall and relax, letting the icy wind numb the shock as it whips against her relentlessly.

***

“What the hell is the meaning of this?” With a bang Catra slaps the gun on the dark wood of Scorpia’s desk. She’s playing with fire, but Catra is still a little shaken up. She had actually been under the impression that her position within the gang had been more or less secure, after these few weeks. Distrust would’ve been easier to explain in the beginning, not now, after already having proved herself multiple times. It’s a risk to lay it on Scorpia so directly and carelessly, but Catra needs answers. Scorpia only raises an eyebrow bemusedly as she studies the silver Beretta.

“I don’t know, Catra,” she answers. It sounds sincere, especially lacking Scorpia’s favorite nickname for her. Catra grimaces and turns back around, pacing down the room before turning and pacing back again.

“I’ve had tails before, you know,” Catra says, eyes flickering up to observe Scorpia’s expression. “Nearly all of the time since I started here.” The corner of Scorpia’s mouth pulls up slightly. Of course she knows about that, Catra thinks. “But none of them have tried to _kill_ me before.” Scorpia sighs and leans forward in her chair, placing her elbows on the desk.

“Kitty. Sit, please,” she urges. “All this pacing makes me nauseous.” Catra complies silently. “Look,” Scorpia continues once she’s seated, leaning over the desk to grab one of Catra’s hands between her own, and squeezing it reassuringly. “Yes. You were being followed during your… probationary period. But that’s protocol.” She lets Catra’s hand go and folds her own on the desk. “And that period ended two weeks ago.” Catra’s eyes widen.

“But he—the kid who tried to shoot me, he was Black Garnet,” she counters. “I saw it!” Scorpia doesn’t answer, her dark eyes glazed over, seemingly lost in thought. “What?” Catra asks, suddenly impatient and so, so very tired of all these secrets everywhere she goes. “Does this mean you’re not actually the leader? Are there multiple factions? Or am I going to have to assume it _was_ you, who apparently signed my death sentence?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Scorpia huffs. Her eyes narrow as she looks at Catra, considering. “I have something for you.” She opens one of the desk drawers and Catra is about to tell her that she’s leaving if she’s not getting any real answers, soon when Scorpia fishes a piece of jewelry out of it. It’s a silver necklace, with a black garnet dangling from it. The symbol of Black Garnet membership. Catra’s rite of passage. “Put this on,” Scorpia says as she hands her the necklace. Catra doesn’t hesitate as she pulls the silver chain around her neck, under her dark curls, and fastens it. The stone sits coolly on her chest, solid and sure, and for the first time Catra really feels like there’s no way back from this mission, now. “Congratulations,” Scorpia says, with an uncharacteristically blank face, “you’re an official member of Black Garnet now. Which means I can finally involve you in the inner workings of the gang.”

“So… I was right?” Catra asks, silently. “You’re not the leader.” Scorpia allows a tiny grin before she schools her expression again.

“You’re pretty sharp, Cat,” she answers. “Yes. I’m a figurehead, a puppet, whatever you want to call it. The real leader of the Black Garnet prefers to keep underground, because… well.” Scorpia averts her eyes and sigh. “Promise you won’t laugh,” she says. Catra raises an eyebrow.

“I won’t,” she answers, sitting unmoving in her chair. For the first time in weeks, she’s close to some _real_ information. It’s electrifying.

“She’s currently occupying another, rather public position,” Scorpia says. “As a police captain.” Catra’s eyes widen and her breath catches in her throat— if it isn’t for its incessant beating in her chest, Catra could swear her heart stops, too.

“What?” she exhales, her voice wavering slightly. Scorpia starts grinning.

“I know!” she says, smiling. “Isn’t it ironic? Captain Weaver, keeping the streets of Fright City safe, well.” A chuckle. Catra can’t believe what she’s hearing. “Safe for our operations to succeed, yes.”

“Weaver?” she asks, still completely lost for words. Out of everyone in the department, the captain had seemed like the most trustworthy. Hell, she’s even involved in this undercover mission, Catra suddenly realizes.

“We usually call her Shadow,” Scorpia elaborates. “Someone in her position needs a dual identity, as I’m sure you understand.” Catra nods. Every little detail she reported, every piece of information she included, it’s all flashing before her mind’s eye. She’s not sure she’s ever felt this betrayed.

“Is she the one who gave the order to kill me?” Catra asks, frowning. Scorpia grimaces.

“Yes. You’ll have to forgive her. She leaves most things to me, she probably just thinks you’re some goon who’s trying to climb the ranks too fast. Shadow’s notoriously untrustworthy.” Scorpia shoots her a comforting smile, but it doesn’t really do anything for Catra, who knows for a fact that that can’t be true. It’s clear as day. Weaver wants her out of the picture. “I’ll clear it up with her,” Scorpia says. “Can’t have my trustee be shot right before the big day, can we?” Catra stays quiet, looking at Scorpia questioningly. All these revelations, she feels like she’s getting whiplash. Scorpia must have noticed her confused look because she claps her hands together apologetically. “Right, right; you don’t know about that either. Sorry, we keep most things secret from rookie gang members.”

“What’s happening on this ‘big day’?” Catra asks. She takes a few deep breaths to calm her raging heartbeat. That familiar focus returns. Weaver will have to be dealt with later, she thinks. There is new information to concentrate on, now. Scorpia leans forward excitedly.

“So, the FCPD is having a funeral for a fallen officer, this Sunday,” she says, an excited glint in her eye. “And they’re such sticklers for tradition, it’s the perfect place for Shadow to make her move. Are you familiar with the chief of police here, in Fright City?” It takes Catra a second to recall.

“His name is Hordak, right?” she answers. Scorpia smiles approvingly.

“Yes. Hordak, he’s not so different from Shadow,” she says. “He’s quite high-up in the Horde Crime Syndicate.” Catra can feel face turn pale as her heart seems to sink with dread. Is the entire FCPD corrupt? Was all they’ve been doing in trying to stop this gang war futile to begin with, when it’s a war that’s waging inside the department as well? The longer she’s in this room with Scorpia, the more it starts to feel like it. “We’re not sure if he’s actually at the top of their hierarchy,” Scorpia continues. “They have a known leader, Keldor, but he might just be a mouthpiece.” Catra remembers him from the FCPD’s file on the Horde; Keldor, with a face marred by acid burns, earning him his savage appearance and nickname, Skeletor. Catra had never assumed anything other than him being the, or at least a leader of the Horde. Good to know that is most likely a lie, as well.

“So, like you,” Catra mutters. Scorpia starts laughing.

“Yeah, like me, I suppose. Anyway,” she continues, “I’ll spare you the politics of it all—it gets confusing with all these blurred lines between gang and police business—Shadow wants to take Hordak out, so she can take his place and climb the ranks within the FCPD, while also taking the Horde down a notch.”

“Right,” Catra responds. “So, what’s her plan exactly, is she just going to shoot Hordak at an event with more cops than any other day of the year?” It sounds batshit crazy when she says it out loud like this. Catra has never known Weaver to be reckless like this, but then again, had she even really known Weaver in the first place? Scorpia just grins.

“Yes,” she says. “When the procession moves from the church to the cemetery. The plan is to move on the car the chief will be riding in, kill him, make some more chaos, and put the blame on the Horde. It’s perfect! You’ll have to leave this one at home though.” With a grin, Scorpia taps on her own necklace. “It has to be believable, you know.”

“Wait,” Catra speaks. “Do you—Am I going, too?”

“Obviously,” Scorpia says. “You’re a full member of the Black Garnet, now. Besides I need you there as backup.” Catra bites her lip softly as she considers it. Scorpia’s dependency on her does give her all the reason to be there, and to do anything in her power to prevent the attack from taking place. She crosses her arms and mirrors the grin Scorpia’s giving her.

“Cool. Looking forward to it, already.”

 

As soon as she’s outside, Catra’s legs start moving, taking her to Adora’s neighborhood in big, resolute strides. The funeral is happening in two days, so they might not get any other opportunity to meet. Catra is still contemplating everything that was said in Scorpia’s office; Weaver’s involvement in the gang, the general corruption within the FCPD, their plan of attack. It’s almost enough to take her mind off the gleaming silver Beretta that had come so close to taking her life. A tiny shiver goes down her back at the thought and Catra grimaces. She needs to be more careful from now on.

Instead of taking the direct route to Adora’s apartment, Catra rounds a couple of corners until she’s walking the other way, to the subway. She’s safer among a crowd, though knowing the types that roam within the Black Garnet Gang and Weaver’s tenacity in catching certain individuals, it’s far from a guarantee. Still, Catra hopes the rush of people in and out of the just arriving subway cars is enough to shake any potential people on her trail, and she quickly looks for a place to sit. She exits the subway again after two stops and continues walking to Adora’s flat.

Catra is just entering the park closest to Adora’s place when she notices a shadow following her. Her posture grows rigid instantly, every sense on high alert. If she lets her tail know she’s spotted them, she might be done for. The park has some trees to hide behind, but unarmed, in the dark and on unfamiliar territory, Catra can’t let it come to an outright attack. Taking in a deep breath and picking up the pace, she keeps on walking.

Every few steps, she glances backwards. And every few steps, the shadowy figure seems to have come closer. Catra feels her heart start racing in her chest and the second she passes another tree, she ducks behind it, crouching down and looking back. Fuck, she internally curses when she sees no movement in the darkness. Her only advantage is that her tail can most likely see as little as she. Catra stays as still as she can, her eyes gliding carefully over her surroundings and her ears straining to pick up on even the littlest of sounds.

All of a sudden, a hand clasps her shoulder, startling Catra so bad that she yelps in surprise as she blindly grabs the stranger’s arm and slams them into the tree she’d been hiding behind. Her attacker groans painfully, and only when they don’t get up and fight back does Catra see who the hand belongs to.

“Shit,” Catra exclaims, worry immediately etching into her features. “Adora, are you okay? Fuck, I’m so sorry!” Adora shoots her a grin that’s only slightly on the painful side.

“Just peachy,” she answers. “And just when I thought you finally knew the difference between She-Ra and Adora, too.” Catra can only stare, still a little slack jawed from the surprise.

“I—shit, sorry, you just took me by surprise,” Catra says as she crouches down next to her friend, her hands hovering over the black hoodie because she wants to feel that Adora is okay, but she doesn’t want to intrude. It’s turns out to be an idle worry, because Adora simply takes her hands in her own and pulls her down gently, so they’re both sitting on the damp grass.

“Since when are you so jumpy?” Adora asks softly, her thumbs rubbing soothingly over her knuckles. Even in the dark Catra can see the worried look in her eyes. She looks away, to their joined hands.

“Please, don’t freak out too much,” Catra mutters. Adora nods, waiting patiently for her to continue. “So, someone from the gang might have tried to kill me, yesterday.”

“ _What_?!” Adora’s eyes widen and she’s instantly pulling Catra closer. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Catra says, untangling one hand to gesture at herself. “As you can see, not dead at all.” Adora frowns.

“That’s not funny, Catra,” she mutters as she stands up.

“It’s kind of funny,” Catra retorts as she lets Adora pulls her up to her feet.

“Come on, idiot,” Adora says, sounding annoyed, but the tiny, relieved smile that’s pulling at the corners of her mouth betrays her. That, and the fact that she’s is still holding Catra’s hand as they start walking the last bit to the apartment.

 

“So, what happened?” Adora asks. They’re back to sitting on her comfortable, soft couch and Catra basks in the feeling of being back in this warmth. Regarding her partner’s question, she just shrugs.

“When I left you place last time, I was being followed, as per usual. Then all of a sudden, this kid pulls out a Beretta and pushes it against the back of my neck,” Catra says, airily like she didn’t come within an inch of losing her life that night. “I turned away just in time.” Adora is observing her with a piercing gaze, which would feel threatening if Catra didn’t know how much Adora cares for her. She grabs her friend’s hands again. “I’m fine, Adora. Really.” Adora bites her lip.

“Right,” she says, “yeah. I know. You’re okay.” It sounds like she’s trying hard to convince herself and Catra smiles. “But why did he do it?” Adora continues. “I thought your position within the gang had, I don’t know, solidified a little?”

“That’s what I thought too,” Catra replies. She takes a deep breath. “Okay. So, uh…” She hesitates, biting her lip while thinking about the best way to bring this. “I found out who the mole at the FCPD is.” Adora’s eyes widen.

“Really?” she says, enthusiastically, while leaning in closer. Catra nods.

“Don’t be alarmed,” she says, looking at her hands. Just like a band aid, Catra thinks. Don’t hesitate, do it fast. “Scorpia is not the actual leader of the Black Garnet. It’s captain Weaver, who goes by Shadow in the gang. She’s the one who has been feeding them information and she’s the one who gave the order to kill me.” Catra looks up at Adora and winces a little at the utter shock she sees there. “There’s more, actually.” Adora stays silent. “Scorpia told me the chief of police, Hordak, is the leader of the Horde. Weaver plans on killing him during the department funeral, this Sunday.”

“What?” Adora breathes.

“Scorpia told me I need to be there,” Catra continues. “I don’t know how, exactly, but they’re going to attack him when he’s in the car, during the procession. The idea is to create anarchy and blame it on the Horde, so Weaver can jump into the power vacuum, both within the FCPD and in the criminal underworld. I don’t think Weaver will be there, herself. She needs to lay low in order for this plan to work.” Adora drags a hand down her face as she takes it all in. “Take your time,” Catra mutters as she fiddles with her necklace. “I know it’s… a lot.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Adora replies quietly, her head resting in her hands, and Catra grins at hearing a curse out of her usually so decent partner’s mouth. “And this is all happening Sunday?”

“Yes. Since I’m an official member of the gang now—” Catra twirls the black garnet between her fingers, holding it up in the light for Adora to see. “—I guess Scorpia finally felt the need to include me in their plans.” Adora sighs.

“When I first found traces of the mole, I thought… I thought it was a lone wolf, acting out of some sort of necessity,” she murmurs. “A cop in need of money, being paid by the gang for intel, or something. I never imagined it to be so…”

“Ingrained?” Catra finishes. “Yeah, me neither.” They both stay silent for a while after that.

“You’ll be there?” Adora asks. “At the funeral, I mean.” She’s looking at Catra intently and Catra is sure she’s looking at her friend’s cool, blue eyes just as closely.

“Yeah,” she answers. “And I’m going to do everything I can to stop them. You?”

“She-Ra will be there,” Adora says determinedly. Their hands find each other again. “I just need you to promise me something.” Catra nods.

“Anything.”

“Be careful,” Adora says, her voice soft but unwavering. “Watch your back. I’ll be there and I’ll do what I can, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to protect you.” Catra grins, but it’s sour in the face of this mission, which feels like an impossible undertaking.

“I can take care of myself,” she answers. “And I know you can, as well. Trust me.” That earns her an actual unburdened smile and Catra finds herself returning it, more easily than she would’ve thought. It’s the main thing between them, after all; since Catra knew Adora and She-Ra were the same person, even before that. These past months have been riddled with secrets, with nothing really being the way it seems, which has exhausted Catra like nothing ever has. Throughout it all, the one person she has been able to put her trust in, unwaveringly and unconditionally, has been Adora.

“I trust you,” Adora whispers. And Catra believes her.

When it happens, it feels like an inevitability—they were already sitting impossibly close together—though it takes Catra entirely by surprise. It’s that damn comfortable ease, that being in Adora’s cozy flat, that being around Adora seems to do instill in her. Catra’s hands let go of Adora’s as they both lean in, coming up to clutch onto the soft fabric of Adora’s black hoodie while Adora’s hands grab onto the collar of her leather jacket, both pulling the other closer. Adora’s eyes are a stormy blue grey, like the skies of Fright City outside and they’re the last thing Catra sees, before she closes her own and presses their lips together.

No kiss has ever felt as familiar as this, Catra realizes as she presses against Adora. The warm hand in her neck, the fingers curling in her hair, her own hands secure on Adora’s waist and their lips, moving away only to come together again; it feels like the accumulation of all the ways she’s grown closer to Adora these past months. She tries to lose herself in Adora and to commit everything about this moment to her memory. Not just because it’s their first kiss, but because it could be their last, too.

***

It’s pouring down like Fright City is going to flood and the world is going to end. Catra zips her leather jacket all the way up, feeling strangely weightless with the absence of a bulletproof vest. At least she goes into this battle armed, she thinks, with a Glock in the pocket of her jacket and a Smith & Wesson tucked in her jeans, both a forty-inch caliber. Catra briefly misses her FCPD issued SIG, but the weight of the weapons does manage to set her mind at ease.

It’s almost time to go, but Scorpia is still looking at the rain as it drips down the windows of her office.

“It’s not going to let up any time soon, is it?” she says. “Figures. Great weather for a funeral, though.”

“Because it’s gloomy?” Catra asks. Scorpia turns away from the window and dons a long, black trench coat.

“Yes, that too,” she answers. A short gesture to the other assembled gang members in the room—Catra doesn’t know any of them by name—and then they’re on the move. “But also because the rain… it’s kind of cleansing, don’t you think?” Scorpia continues as their party step out into the downpour, and into the black Mercedes and a grey Subaru. “After a day drowned in grief and rain, the dawn of a new day just feels that much brighter. Then again, I’ve never been one to dwell on the past.” Catra closes the door of the car behind her and wonders, as they drive off, how many funerals Scorpia has attended in her life.

A sea of blue awaits them in front of the church. An entire crowd of officers in dress uniform are pouring out of the small cathedral, which seems to blend in with the clouds above, its stones rough and grey like the sky. It’s still raining, though the storm from earlier has shrunk to a dirty kind of drizzle that seems like it’s never going to end. As her eyes scan the crowd, Catra spots a few familiar faces from the department. Lonnie is there and a little way back she sees Rogelio and Kyle, talking with their faces close together. A bitter pang shoots through her chest and for a brief moment, Catra wishes she could stand with them, in her neatly pressed, navy FCPD suit that she hates. She bites the inside of her cheek softly and turns away.

Standing side by side with Scorpia, Catra takes in the rest of their surroundings. They’re standing close to the building directly opposite to the church, between all the locals who came out to watch the procession proceed to walk through the city, to the fallen officer’s final resting place at the Cypress Hills cemetery. The others are on the other sides of the church, invisible in the mass of people that’s gathered on the street, recognizable only by the necklaces, carefully hidden underneath their coats. The Mercedes is parked just a block away, with Scorpia’s usual driver waiting and ready to speed away once they flee the scene after all hell breaks loose.

Time is running out, Catra realizes as the last officers exit the church. She needs to come up with some sort of plan, preferably one that doesn’t endanger all the innocent bystanders surrounding them. Scorpia hasn’t told her who will take the shot, once Hordak exits the church and enters his car. Catra also doesn’t know to what extent Hordak has his own troops standing by. Then there is the horde of FCPD officers to consider; they will be on alert and armed as soon as the first shot is fired. So many variables to take into account and somehow, she’s the one who’s supposed to stop it. Catra feels her hands grow cold and clammy in her pockets and her eyes scan the crowd once again.

Grim faces, collars and hoodies pulled up against the drizzling rain, a sea of dark coats that’s so vast that Catra almost misses a familiar face. Adora is wearing her She-Ra hoodie with the hood down and she seems to be looking straight at Catra, looking bright and alert. Their eyes lock and Adora nods once, a slow and deliberate movement, that says: “I’m here. I’m ready.” And she is, if that bulge underneath the hoodie is anything to go by. Catra starts breathing a little easier when she thinks about the sword and how expertly She-Ra wields it. A deep breath leaves her lungs and Catra relaxes her posture. She’s not in this alone.

Then the pallbearers come into view at the church doors. There are six of them, all in full uniform, carrying the casket slowly but steadily down the steps, onto the cleared road. Not too long after, Hordak comes into view. He’s flanked by the major of Fright City and the governor, all three wearing somber expressions and long, black coats. In unison, they walk down the steps behind the pallbearers and move towards the cars that are waiting there for them, ready to follow the pallbearers and the casket to its final resting place. Next to her, Catra hears the familiar, dry click of a hammer of a gun being pulled backwards. She turns and sees Scorpia get a black handgun with a silencer out of the inside pocket of her coat. A languid smile stretches across her face as she raises her arm, squints, and pulls the trigger.

On the other side of the street, Hordak collapses. He hasn’t even touched the ground when the others come out of hiding and move on the crowd of officers, the major, the governor and even the pallbearers, who are wobbling in their haste to set down the casket. It’s all like Catra expected. The echoes of the shots aren’t even done bouncing off the walls of the surrounding buildings when all hell breaks loose.

For a second, Catra stays frozen, rooted to her spot next to Scorpia, who is still firing round after round in the general direction of Hordak, eyes wide and wearing a crazed grin. Then she turns to Catra.

“What are you waiting for, kitty?!” she yells over the shouts and screams coming from around them. People are running and pushing against her, anxious to get away. Catra moves with them as she stares at Scorpia.

“Right,” she says as she grabs the Glock with her right hand and the Smith & Wesson with her left. A momentary glance at the spot where Adora had been standing comes up empty, She-Ra still lost somewhere in the commotion. Still, Catra grins confidently. “Let’s do this.” Without hesitation, she raises her right arm, tensing the muscles in it as she shoots Scorpia in the calf, before kicking the gun out of her hand and knocking the Black Garnet boss unconscious with the butt of the gun. Then she’s off, running through the disarray of officers, civilian and gangbangers towards the middle of the street, where the hooded vigilante is busy incapacitating a group of men holding Kalashnikovs with vigorous strokes of her sword.

Catra is so fixated on Adora that she doesn’t see the brawny dude with the wooden baseball bat as she runs past him; she’s not fast enough and with a sickening crack, he slams it against her legs. Pain instantly flashes through her left shin, and Catra stumbles before crashing to the ground with a groan. The man lifts the bat above his head with both arms, fully intending to bring it down on her again, but Catra is quicker and shoots him in the arm, before using her position on the ground to kick at his legs. She’s scrambling to stand and running again before the goon has even hit the ground.

It goes on like that, for what seems like an eternity. Catra is taking out members of the Horde and Black Garnet left and right, incapacitating them with carefully placed shots in arms and legs while the rain drips down her face, sometimes even getting wound up in a fist fight that always seems to end with Catra knocking her opponent to the ground. Still it feels like she’s no closer to She-Ra than when she started, and it’s getting frustrating. Then, like a godsend, Rogelio suddenly pops up from her left, with one of the guys from Scorpia’s inner circle held in a headlock.

“Jelly,” Catra pants, surprised and out of breath. “Fancy seeing you here.” Rogelio knees the goon in the stomach and drops him on the concrete.

“Don’t be cute, Cat,” he answers as he looks around, gun drawn. “You couldn’t give the department a heads up about this?” Catra shrugs apologetically.

“Uh, yeah, sorry about that,” she answers as she turns her back to Rogelio. “The gang wasn’t exactly that forthcoming with that kind of information.” They stay like that for a moment, back to back in their little eye of this shit storm hurricane, dropping a handful of gang members from a distance before Catra turns back to face him. “Look, just make sure you stay safe, okay?” she says. Her eyes drift over the scene before them; officers engaged in skirmishes with goons, sirens endlessly going off in the distance, creating a cacophony with the rain and She-Ra, fighting through all this chaos with a determined frown. There’s a pull in her chest Catra can no longer ignore. “Find that rookie cop of yours and get out of dodge, _please_ ,” she tells Rogelio. He glowers as his eyes follow Catra’s over the pandemonium.

“You know I can’t do that,” he says, as he clicks the empty magazine out of his gun and switches it with a new one. “You’re not in this alone, Catra.” It’s an idle sentiment because logically, Catra knows that. Almost the entire FCPD is out on this street, armed and fighting on the same side she is. Still, it fills her chest with something warm and she smiles.

“I know,” she tells her friend. “See you on the other side, partner.” Rogelio’s stern face cracks into a grin and he nods at her as Catra takes off again, into the fray, to find her other partner.

 

She-Ra’s face is twisted in grit and a devastating focus and she moves just like she did the day of the shootout. She’s the picture of practiced grace and power, with the way the sword cuts through the air and the weapons that are aimed at her. It’s mesmerizing. A drop of rain hits her cheek, then and Catra is brought back to reality. She-Ra is currently fighting off five men at once and Catra is damned if she lets her partner be outnumbered. Gritting her teeth, she raises both arms and shoots at the two men who stand the furthest away from She-Ra, their guns raised as they wait for an opening. Shots echo and then they’re down, just as She-Ra cuts through the arm of one and the leg of another. Catra bridges the few yards left between them and swiftly knocks the last guy on the back of his head as she reaches the vigilante.

“Hey Adora,” she says, biting her lip to prevent her grin from growing too wide. Adora looks at her with wide eyes, temporarily broken out of that impressive focus.

“Hey,” she breathes. There are tiny specks of blood covering her neck and her face, despite the fact that she’s still wearing the hood up. The black hoodie itself is stained as well, though Catra isn’t sure whether it’s blood or rain. Probably a mixture of both. Her eyes are wide as she looks at Catra, as if in the disarray, she had forgotten she was here, too.

“You’re handling yourself pretty well,” Catra says. Adora rolls her eyes at that but can’t help but smile bashfully.

“Yeah, well. You aren’t half bad in a fight either, detective,” she answers. Catra’s grin only widens.

“Come on,” she says as she turns around and takes in the sight before them. “Looks like it’s time to arrest some of these punks.” It looks like most of the Horde and Black Garnet gang members are down on the ground or otherwise incapacitated, being detained by the officers or being loaded into the ambulances that are arriving on the scene. The ones that aren’t have most likely already fled the scene. Catra doesn’t know what happened to Hordak, the mayor, the governor or the pallbearers and the casket, but right now she doesn’t care. The rain is still falling down, but at least the battle seems over, just as abruptly as it had begun. Catra pushes the guns she’s holding back in the pockets of her leather jacket and turns back to Adora. She’s smiling at her partner and opening her mouth to say something when a fiery, burning pain suddenly sears through her back and abdomen.

The sheer intensity and shock make it so that the sound of a shot being fired only registers after Catra’s knees have already hit the asphalt. The cold water from a puddle seeps through her jeans but Catra only feels the fierce hurt in her lower back and her gut. Instinctively, her hands come up to unzip her jacket and dread starts coursing through Catra’s veins when she sees the dark stain in her t-shirt. Her fingers gently touch it and come away a bright red.

“Fuck,” Catra whispers. She tries to turn around, ignoring the screaming pain in her middle as she moves, and over her shoulder Catra spots Scorpia. She’s still on the other side of the street where Catra left her, but she’s awake and looking straight at her, grinning as three cops pull the gun from her hands and pull her arms backwards. “Fuck,” she says again as she turns back around and looks down. Warm blood continues to ooze out of the wound, dripping down into the puddle of rainwater below.

Then there are cool fingers on her jaw, lifting her face up until Catra sees grey blue eyes. She tries a grin. “Sorry,” is what comes out when Adora’s hand covers her own over the wound, and starts pressing down, hard.

“Don’t say that,” she growls as her other hand finds its way underneath Catra’s jacket and presses down on the entry wound in her back. Catra can feel the adrenaline make way for more pain and she shivers involuntarily. Suddenly, the raindrops that are perpetually falling down feel freezing. “Catra, look at me,” Adora says. Catra reluctantly takes her eyes off the cloudy sky and focuses on her partner again. “I’m not letting you die, you idiot,” she mutters and Catra grins again. She leans forward until her head is resting on her shoulder, her forehead against the warmth of Adora’s neck. There are words that are trying to crawl out, things she’s thought before but never dared to say out loud, but Catra’s throat closes up as soon hot tears start rolling down her cheeks and she’s not able to say anything.

Then the paramedics arrive, pulling Catra from Adora’s arms and laying her down on a cot before wheeling her into the ambulance.

 

The first thing Catra feels when she wakes up is a dulled pain in her belly and her lower back and she groans softly. When she opens her eyes the first thing she sees is Rogelio, sitting on a chair next to the bed. Lonnie and Adora are there too, the former hanging around near the foot of the bad and the latter dressed in civvy clothes, looking out of the window of the hospital room.

“Aw guys,” Catra croaks out with a small grin. “You came.”

“Of course we did, Cat,” Lonnie huffs as she returns a smile, crossing her arms. “You’re the hero of the department, with going undercover and bringing in a ton of perps, today.”

“Figures you’re only here for clout with the biggest badass in the FCPD,” Catra retorts, her smile widening as Lonnie rolls her eyes and chuckles.

“More like the biggest dumbass,” Adora mutters from the back of the room. She’s standing the furthest away from the bed and Catra kind of wishes Rogelio and Lonnie would leave. It’s a stupid thought though, Catra thinks as she looks back at Rogelio. He’s silent, but the relieved smile on her friend’s face speaks volumes.

“How’d it go with you, Jelly?” she asks. “Is that rookie okay?”

“Kyle will be fine,” Rogelio answers in that soft, low voice of his. “He’s a resilient kid. And after this, I don’t think he’ll scare easily, anymore.”

“Well, it’s either that or PTSD,” Lonnie mutters. Catra can’t help but snort and she groans immediately, because of the momentarily intensifying pain that accompanies the movement. Rogelio rolls his eyes at the two of them and stands up.

“Come on, let’s get some coffee,” he tells Lonnie as he opens the door. “I’ll see you later, Cat.” Catra raises one hand and wriggles her fingers as they leave. Her arm falls back onto the covers as the door clicks shut. Adora stays at the window.

“Hey Adora,” Catra tries, her voice soft. “I guess we’re both stubborn, huh?” It does the trick. Adora turns around, arms crossed, and shoots her a questioning gaze.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“Well, you said you weren’t going to let me die,” Catra replies with a small smile. Adora rolls her eyes and walks up to the bed.

“There’s actually a ninety-five percent chance you’ll survive a gunshot wound if you’re brought into the hospital with your heart still beating,” Adora mentions offhandedly as she sits, like she hadn’t been worried sick; though her eyes are dry now, the puffiness of her cheeks betray the tears that must’ve rolled down them earlier. Catra reaches and grabs a hold of her hand.

“Still. I’m glad you were there with me,” she mutters. Adora squeezes softly once, but doesn’t answer for quite a while.

“Rogelio and Lonnie don’t know, right?” she asks eventually.

“No,” Catra sighs, as she stares at the tiled ceiling. Though the worst is over, they still have a long way to go with prosecuting Weaver, Hordak and possibly even more white-collar criminals that hold a position within the FCPD. “I wasn’t able to meet with anyone between when I last saw you and today.”

“That’s okay,” Adora answers. “Scorpia is arrested, thanks to you, and we have proof of Weaver’s involvement. We’ll just go from there.” She watches Catra patiently, a small smile playing around the corners of her lips and Catra wonders what she sees, what she’s thinking about right now. She wonders if Adora is thinking about their last talk, too. “How do you feel?” Adora asks, quietly. Catra pauses.

“Good, I think,” Catra replies. “Considering, I mean.” Honestly, she hadn’t really focused on her injuries since she woke up, but the pain in her stomach and her back seems to have dulled considerably by the drugs that are most likely swirling through her bloodstream. Rationally, Catra knows her body must be littered with bruises too; especially on the leg that was hit by that baseball bat. She doesn’t feel those at all. “I’ll be fine in no time.” Adora raises an eyebrow and scoffs.

“’No time’?” she says, affronted. “You were _shot_ , Catra.” Catra just shrugs, wincing a little as the movement tugs on her stitches.

“Many people get shot and live to tell the tale,” is her answer. Adora just looks at her, slack-jawed for a moment before she starts rattling off facts about average healing periods for shot wounds in different parts of the body, and how incredibly lucky Catra is that the bullet went through-and-through and not bounced around within her abdomen, and Catra thinks she would’ve found it annoying if it wasn’t also entirely enthralling. As she leans back onto her pillow, Catra smiles at the thought that, no matter how long it’s going to take for her to get back on her feet, Adora is going to be here for her; either to help out with building a case or to yell at her for tearing her stitches. With a little pull, Catra brings Adora’s hand to her face and presses a kiss to her palm, effectively breaking Adora out of her rambling story.

“What was that for?” she asks, blushing slightly.

“Nothing,” Catra says, smiling quietly as she softly presses her cheek into Adora’s hand. “I’m just really glad you’re here.”

***

After she leaves the hospital, staying with Adora happens more or less naturally. At first, it’s because Catra literally can’t take care of herself, or at least she can’t lift anything heavy or do anything more intensive than a short walk. It’s no surprise that she accepts when Adora offers to let her stay at her flat, because honestly Catra has always been partial to the apartment. The fact that Adora’s building has an elevator where Catra’s doesn’t helps, too. The added benefit of this arrangement is always being around Adora, who takes to working from home, something Catra had been weary about at first but as time passes, she finds she enjoys.

There’s always someone around to laugh at her comments when Catra insults the people on tv, or to hum along whenever Catra is bumping her favorite playlists. Even when they’re both quiet, Adora writing another fluff piece for the Bright Moon Herald and Catra lost in one of the romance novels Adora keeps around, it feels companionable. Before they both know it, two months have passed, and they’ve ended up in some sort of comfortable, easy, domestic routine.

They both sleep in Adora’s king size bed, they take turns cooking and Adora cleans, telling Catra she can’t risk tearing her stitches by helping her nearly every time, so in turn Catra does the dishes that day. In the beginning, Catra had been afraid that being around each other so often might make her start to hate Adora, because she doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to clingy girlfriends, or cohabiting. As a matter of fact, Catra had already resigned herself to the fact that she, ironically enough, was probably going to end up with cats for roommates a long time ago. So, it comes as a nice surprise that living with Adora never makes her feel too crowded. Instead, Catra gets a kick out of being able to tease her partner at every opportunity she gets, or staying up late together, or watching as Adora sleepily blinks her eyes open for the first time, in the morning. Over the course of weeks, the warmth that Catra has always associated with this place, settles in her chest whenever she thinks about Adora.

The sun is setting later these days and golden rays fall through the window overlooking the street, landing on Catra’s arm, that’s resting on the back of the couch. She takes a moment to revel in the unburdened warmth that it brings, then directs her attention back to the tv. The news anchor is still talking about the case concerning Weaver that finally made it to court, the probable time she’s going to be serving and an abundance of details from the official investigation, painting a picture of all the horrible consequences Weaver’s position as police captain have had. He’s talking about the heroin bust that had cost Mara her life when the front door opens.

“There you are,” Catra says with a smile, tilting her head backwards so she can see Adora set her sword in the umbrella holder by the door and put down her hood. “They’re talking about us.”

“Really?” Adora says as she plops down next to Catra on the couch, watching the tv.

“Well, not really,” she answers, “but kind of. Look, they’re showing the evidence you uncovered.”

“Huh,” Adora answers as she watches the crime scene pictures from that the bust. Catra stretches her legs lazily, her feet up on the antique mahogany coffee table, and she spots Adora’s eyes flickering down to them for a moment. It’s all according to the rules, though. No liquids on the table and she’s wearing fluffy, pink woolen socks, which bring a small smile to Adora’s face. The newscaster moves on to Hordak then, the evidence that’s been found regarding his gang activities and Catra tunes out, choosing to watch Adora instead.

“How was it out there, today,” she asks. “Catch a lot of criminals, She-Ra?” Adora snorts and pushes against her shoulder.

“As a matter of fact, no,” she answers. “The FCPD has really been turning over a new leaf with combatting gang violence, especially now Weaver and Hordak are out of the picture. The most exciting part of my day was rescuing a cat from a tree.” Catra starts chuckling.

“Wow. I would’ve paid good money to see that,” she says.

“Why?” Adora counters with a grin. “I’m a notoriously good climber, remember?” Catra groans as she remembers the night when Adora had indeed climbed up a tree very stealthily, keeping so quiet that she’d given Catra a near heart attack when she jumped down right in front of her, afterwards.

“Right, you want to hear me say it now, correct?” she says. Adora’s grin widens and she nods with bright eyes.

Those puppy dog eyes are going to be the end of me, Catra thinks as she smiles and says: “Okay. You’re the best climber I know. In addition to being the most annoying vigilante I know. Oh, I almost forgot; and the worst cover hog I know. And also—”

Catra starts snickering as Adora cuts her off with another slap against her shoulder and in indignant: “Hey!”

“Ooh, ouch,” Catra exclaims mockingly, still giggling at the exasperated look Adora is giving her.

“Do I need to slap you again or are you going to stop on your own?” she says with a slight grin. Catra can only return it; she’s always liked a challenge.

“Are you going to stop slapping me or do you accept the consequences?” she counters, sitting up with only the tiniest bit of protest from her wounds.

“That depends, detective. What are you going to do,” Adora whispers in her ear as she leans in close, “shoot me?” Catra grins and slides her hand under the dirty black vigilante hoodie Adora is still wearing. Her grin widens when her fingers find a smooth expanse of skin and she slowly slides her hands over Adora’s belly to her sides, then even further to her lower back.

“I might have,” Catra murmurs, pulling her in closer and pressing soft kisses to her jaw and neck. “If you’d have worn that stupid bulletproof shirt.” She starts tickling Adora because, honestly, as much as Catra loves kissing her, she might love playing games like this even more. Adora squeals and twists her body to get away from Catra’s moving fingers.

“No fair!” she squeals, quickly grabbing onto Catra’s hands and keeping them still. “I can’t even tickle you back!”

“Well then,” Catra purrs as she twists her hands in Adora’s, grabbing onto the other girl’s hands and using them to pull her close, again. “You’re just going to have to find other ways to get me back.” The flush on Adora’s face is immediate and Catra grins, because she absolutely delights in the effect she has on her partner. Adora wastes no time, though. The sun is still shining warm, orange tinted beams on the couch and the coffee table when Adora sneaks one arm under her knees and another around her back, before gently lifting Catra up and carrying them to Adora’s bedroom. Catra doesn’t mind; she just keeps giggling into Adora’s shoulder.

 

If anyone would actually ask her, Catra would say that these past months were hell. And they were, with all the insecurities that tracking down a mole among trusted colleagues, teaming up with a vigilante and joining a gang all bring with them. Not to mention fearing for her life more often than not and actually getting shot, for real, launching her into a painstakingly long process of rehabilitation.

Still, Catra thinks as her fingertips trace over Adora’s skin, creating invisible patterns between scattered birthmarks. She would go into that darkness again, when it means she’s doing the right thing. Especially so when it means she gets to have this: unconditional trust, intimacy like she’s never known and so, _so_ much love, with Adora.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on twitter @youngpoetroe ! <3


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